In 7th and 8th grade we studied astronomy (thanks, Mr. Zagriello!) as part of our science classes, and I remember learning about ::something’s:: speed as (insert random number here) per second per second, something that was really fast. A wide-eyed, “oooh” escaping our 13-year old mouths en masse. But here, in my living room, surrounded by warm felines, I could neither pluck the number nor the object from the recesses of my brain. With G asking the question eleventy different ways, giving me eleventy different scenarios (well, really only three), I was stuck in the middle, trying to remember the lesson of twenty-eight years ago and listening to my husband prodding me, trying to elicit an answer. He was really being so patient, his voice raising only a little bit more than normal, but his excitement/frustration was readily apparent. I was failing, both at remembering the long-ago lesson, and at figuring out the current problem. The noise inside my head was cacophonous, no longer only the astronomy lesson, but also now other guilt-ridden remembrances that, to me, screamed EPIC FAIL. Mostly school-related, spanning all the way back to kindergarten. Things for which I still feel shame.

I have been told by reliable persons, persons with knowledge of the subject, that my persistent feeling of guilt is completely out of whack for the deeds done. Yeah, that’s what they tell me, and I nod my head obediently, with a half-hearted promise to think about it, really, and “just let it go.” Just let it go. Sounds so easy, so reasonable, doesn’t it? Just let it go, and you’ll feel better, it’ll be off your shoulders. Move on to better things. Your life will be so much simpler if you can do this one thing, let it go.

Caught up in this cycle of guilt and wanting to please my husband by figuring out this childishly simple problem, I fell deeper and deeper into despair. My mind felt locked, and I was standing on the outside, curtains drawn tight, meanwhile a fury of a windstorm building all around me. I begged myself to remember the lesson, knowing that if I remembered it, somehow everything would fall into place and I would be able to answer him. I looked everywhere, rattling windows, banging on walls, but nothing would shake free.

Finally, G came up with an example that I grasped. “You owe me 10¢ per minute per minute until you give me the answer, agreed? Pretend that you’re putting it into a box. So, a minute has gone by, that’s 10¢. Now two minutes, so that’s…”

“Twenty cents.”

“Right, but it’s per minute per minute. So what is that?”

“Wait, 10¢ for the first minute, 20¢ for the second minute.”

“Now, how much is in the box?”

“Thirty cents…ohhh! So, per minute per minute adds each amount to the previous amount?”

“YES. So 9.7 meters per second per second is…”

“You are going 9.7 meters in one second…and then 9.7 meters more than that…”

My brain failed at that point. I couldn’t translate dimes to meters, or what it meant. The word “cumulative” escaped me. An age later, I was able to finally say:

“You go 9.7 meters in one second, and then for the next second you go 9.7 meters faster than the last second, and so on. It escalates.”

It took over an hour to get to that point. The frustration and sheer idiocy that I felt has dissipated some as I write this, because I’m proud that I was able to get it, and really get it and be able to extrapolate further, but mixed in there is this drumbeat: “you didn’t get it right away it took forever you are stupid even a child could get it he was feeding you the answer over and over you look like an moron…” and that is the voice that I hear most loudly. The voice that pounds in my ears every time I make a mistake. Every error is a tragedy, every faltering step is fatal. I feel so much anger at myself for even the smallest thing, and then I compound the feeling by sticking my head in the sand and pushing the problem away, hiding it/from it, hoping beyond hope that it will just go away and fix itself. That it will sort itself out. That’s why there are piles of unopened mail, phones that ring unanswered, walls with no paint other than the off-white that has been here since we moved in nearly three years ago, windows without curtains. I know that the solution to so many of these problems is to just face them down and take care of them once and for all, and there are some for which I am doing that, but others have fallen by the wayside, periodically poking up through the ether to make their voices heard, “I’m here! Just finish this and I’ll leave you alone! Forever!” I mean, really, the curtains and rods for the dining room are HERE for Pete’s sake. Just haven’t put them up yet. Constant reminders that I am not taking care of things, and that translates into “You are a BAD WIFE, A BAD MOTHER, AND NOBODY LOVES YOU.”

All of this, this noise, banging around in my head, while I try to figure out what 9.7 meters per second per second means. So silly, to hang onto all of the painful stuff. I mean, it sounds easy enough. Doesn’t it?

I’m off work tomorrow, and will spend a portion of it at the fourth birthday party of my delectable niece. Upon arriving home, I imagine that I will attack my office with high abandon and perhaps even make room for all of the beads that are currently ensconced on our otherwise lovely dining room table. Most of my stash is living in the sturdy and quite lovely fabric-covered storage boxes from The Container Store. At present, I have seven different colors/patterns and am trying to keep some semblance of control over the stash by keeping all the purple in one box, all the red in another, neutrals, etc. However, after installing ten feet of birch and white elfa shelving on the far wall of my office (all by my ownself!), I deposited *quite* a lot of sock yarn into the sliding drawers, dk weight into another, bulky, yet another. WIPs found a home in another drawer. I added these Colibri sachets to fend off Der Stinkin Moths. I’d prefer something fragrance-free in deference to the asthma-stricken Princess Pyewacket, but the fragrance is what keeps the moths at bay, so I may as well have a scent that pleases me. They contain “100% pure natural botanical essences from tea tree, vetiver, peppermint, lemongrass, neem, and others in a fine sandalwood powder base.” Neem? I lined up my knitting books and pamphletted patterns above the leather dresser shelf workspace, am thinking about a binder for my page-protected patterns,  notions found a one-runner drawer to call home.

I’m feeling manic, more than a little. If I sound so to you, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

I’ve been struggling at work, mightily, personality conflicts with most of my coworkers, most of whom I feel quite superior to (manic much?). This last time that my manager has taken me aside to speak to me she’s told me that she knows that I like to talk to everyone, and that she’s sure that I don’t even realize that I’m doing it, but that I’m putting myself into everyone else’s conversations, and that many people don’t appreciate that, and that I should wait to be invited in and not just jump in and start talking. That there is at least one person who has requested that she keep me away from them. That she has gotten complaints about me and my lack of boundaries. That I get too personal. That I don’t know when to stop. That I do too much talking and not enough listening.

This all hit me like a hammer square between the eyes. She’s absolutely right, and even though I do not agree with her on practically anything else on the planet, I do agree with her on this.

I have finally seen the light. Been held underwater until my head was about to explode is more like it. Suffice to say that I am now painfully aware that I have a HUGE issue with personal boundaries and respecting them. Imagine my shock and surprise at realizing that not everyone thinks that everything I have to say is fascinating? That since I’m so smart, I must know what I’m talking about? That I am not welcome in every conversation? That some people actually don’t want me to talk to them? They don’t care about the information I have to share?

Wow.

I am stunned, absolutely stunned and embarrassed and I feel so horrible and that I’ve been shoving myself on everyone for my entire life and everyone actually HAS been talking about me behind my back; that it isn’t just that I’m paranoid. They really ARE saying mean things about me. It’s just that I’ve done something to deserve them and that in some cases, maybe even many cases, they may be true. I just haven’t done them on purpose.

First up are my Cool By The Pool Socks. The yarn is from Yarn Chef, who has a new fiber shop on Etsy. I’ve bought a few skeins from her but as of yet, no unspun fiber. The yarn is gorgeous; the colors, heavenly. It is a delight to work with, smooth and giving in my hands.

Cool By The Pool Socks, 6 April, 2009

Next is the first sock in a pair from a skein to which I’ve long since lost the ball band. I started knitting it back when we lived in Sleepy Hollow, before we put down my dear old girl Scaramouche (Scaramouche Will You Do The Fandango) at 17 1/2.  I couldn’t bear to pick it back up for the longest time. It’s coming along nicely, although the yarn is the teeniest but thicker than Cool By the Pool, and the fit is coming out a skosh too big. So I won’t wear these with my dress shoes. Inside the sock is a blocker from Fearless Fibers, also on Etsy (these blockers are also pictured above). Lovely cedar, fits wonderfully. The knitting bag is from yet another great Etsy shop,  Stuck In Illinois. They’ve got lots of different patterns to choose from, and they’re a really nice size.

Pink and purple sock, missing ballband. Hope it's superwash!

And last, but nowhere near least, is my latest in an interrupted series of Dropstitch Ponchos. I knitted seven of these suckers for my female relations one Chanukah (2006), and had a great time doing it. I got the pattern from The Knitting Cove in Port Jefferson, NY, out on Long Island. It takes four skeins of Noro Iro or the equivalent and is simple to execute. I knitted one for myself first, loved it so much that I decided that this was to be the gift. In talking to my sister not too long ago, I found out that not only does she love hers, but she wears it all the time, and gets a lot of compliments on it. All. The. Time. Music to my ears! She also wore it in a publicity shot that she was in for Nursing Is Normal, a photographic display of nursing moms in public settings shot in Madison, Wisconsin. She loves it so much that she wants another one, in blues this time (the one she has is purple). So here’s my new one (for myself) in progress:

Noro Iro Dropstitch Poncho, Earth Day, 2009

On to the good stuff! I have pictures to share of the babies, who are pretty much babies no more. Mojo and Teazyka turn eight months old tomorrow; it’s amazing to imagine that they used to fit in the palms of my hands.

Mojo, sitting where he knows he ought not be

Teazyka, pretending I can't see him in the kitchen

Mojo, *what* did you say you were faxing?

Teazyka, sleeping with his wubbie

Both boys were neutered a week ago, and once the area was shaved for surgery, the cause of Teazyka’s “leaking” was discovered. He has a congenital urogenital abnormality: his penis, normal-sized for an 8-month old kitten, had never descended due to the opening not being large enough to let it come out, so he was urinating in a tiny pinhole stream, but not all of it was coming out, and it would dribble out  later on, anointing our house with a lovely, lion’s den aroma. During the neutering, our wonderful vet, Dr. Andrea Jacobson of Country Cats in Croton-on-Hudson, NY, found urine beneath his skin, and took some for a urinalysis. She found bacteria in his urine, and he is on antibiotics. After consulting with a colleague, Dr. Green, in Manhattan, she decided that she and Dr. Pirotin of Main Street Cat Hospital in Elmsford, NY, would surgically enlarge the existing opening to accommodate his penis. They performed the surgery to the tune of a little over a thousand dollars, and Teazyka is recuperating, mostly hanging out in my office, where there are lots of snuggly spaces to accommodate his megaphone. He’ll get his sutures out on the 17th, and an ultrasound of his kidneys to see if/how badly they have been damaged. We’re on pins and needles about this, but it’s better knowing than not.

Yep, he’s stuck wearing an Elizabethan collar for another 13 days. Holy baby jeebus. And you would not believe where I have to put K-Y Jelly.

Teazyka, asking for his own Facebook account

to this, in the afternoon:

to this morning’s paper:

President Barack Obama. How long until spellcheck stops telling me I’m misspelling his name?

Last night, I slept a dreamless sleep. I can breathe, now.

RAmen.

Mojo & Teazyka enjoying their first bit of fresh air August 5, 2008

Mojo (left), and Teazyka (right), September 19, 2008

Enjoying the fresh air is a nice pastime for the brothers.

We need one of those covers for the roll. G says,

My stress level the past few weeks has been on a real high, and although I don’t think that being bipolar had anything to do with it, although, it couldn’t have helped. Start with a stupid issue with the retailer Eileen Fisher (do NOT use a gift card online in conjunction with another form of payment for the balance; you will be charged the full amount until the gift card clears. Nowhere on their site does it state this, and they did this with my debit card for $270.80. They ended up overnighting my order for free.) Then came the aforementioned COBRA debacle, which was finally resolved. My father was generous enough to loan us a thousand dollars cash to cover the first month’s payment, with the understanding that as soon as we sell my car (this week), we’ll pay him back. That’s right, we’re selling my car to pay for our health insurance. We really don’t need an extra car with G working from home, I mean, if there’s an emergency and he needs to go somewhere, he can always call a neighbor or take a cab, right? And if he has to take one of the cats to the emergency vet 25 miles away in White Plains? Oh well. I need to get the brakes checked on the Toyota (my little VW is now sitting in front of our house, detailed and cleaned, devoid of bumper stickers, not accruing any more mileage), the brakes feel like they slip in the rain and snow. Niiice.

Anyway, Ryan from COBRA called me the day after I sent in my Express Mailed my money order to tell me that they had indeed received it and no, there would not be any waiting time for it to clear, but that it would take approximately 48 “business hours” for my enrollment to start. Le sigh. Whatever. I’d done everything I could, now it was in their hands. I reiterated that I was out nearly $1400 for prescriptions and let him know that my father had loaned us the $912.81 that I had sent in, and that I was selling my car in order to pay for the following months’ payments. Dig, dig. He told me to call the next day to see how things were progressing.

Not an hour later, my cell phone rang. It was Ryan. “Your enrollment is final, you can go pick up any prescriptions you need, and you can get reimbursed from the pharmacy. They can resubmit the claims and refund you the money.” I started to cry.

We always file and extension for our income taxes, so October 15th is our April 15th. G got the call on the 9th that the taxes were ready and that we could come pick them up. Over the past months, there’s been lots of back and forth, requesting documentation, numbers, all sorts of stuff. We figured that they would ask for everything they needed. Hah!

I went down to the accountant’s before work on the 10th, around 12:30. I picked up the papers, and got back in my car. I opened up the thick blue folder to take a peek and almost fainted. The amount owed was a little over $14,000; $8,000 federal, $6,000 state. Due TODAY. I walked unsteadily back to the accountant’s office and tried not to freak out. I asked if our accountants were there (it’s a group), no, they weren’t. Another accountant in the office came down to try to make heads or tails of our return on the fly, and started in on me. “You have rental property? And you didn’t do this? And this? And this?” Et cetera. I said, “I sell jewelry for a living, my husband is a computer consultant. You are our accountants. WE DO WHAT YOU TELL US TO DO.” Finally, he said that our guys would be in on Monday, and that we could talk to them then. “But what about the fact that they payment is due TODAY?” I said. “So you’ll pay a little penalty, it won’t be much, a few dollars.” Easy for you to say, the penalty is probably a percentage, and any percentage of $14k is enough. Whatever, they weren’t there, and obviously, no one was going to reach out to them for us.

Part Two, coming soon!

“Please note well item six in the following paragraph (italics mine):
“Termination of COBRA Continuation of Coverage: The law also provides that your continuation of coverage may be terminated for any of the following reasons:
1.        W. Jewelers no longer provides group health coverage to any of its employees;
2.        The premium for your continuation of coverage is not paid on time;
3.        You become covered under another group health plan, unless the plan contains any exclusions or limitations with respect to any pre-existing condition you or your covered dependents may have; (see Duration of COBRA continuation section, below);
4.        You become entitled to Medicare;
5.        You extend coverage for up to 29-months due to your disability and there has been a final
determination that you are no longer disabled;
6.        Bankruptcy of W. Jewelers.”

“Since W. is indeed in bankruptcy proceedings, what am I supposed to do about my COBRA coverage, which was supposed to start September 1st? I called and spoke to someone named Susana on the 3rd, since I had not yet received my packet, and she said that she would be sending it out ‘right away.’ I told her that I was concerned about there being a lapse in coverage and she told me not to worry, that COBRA is retroactive and that I ‘could just pay out-of-pocket until my coverage reinstated.’ I told her that it would be at the very least, hundreds of dollars in medication costs and that I could not ‘just pay out-of-pocket until my coverage reinstates.’

“On the 23rd, I called again, and spoke to someone named Liz since I had still not received my packet. She said that she would look into it. She called me back the next day and said that they would be sending it out ‘right away.’ She called me again and left a voice mail for me that if I wanted the packet emailed to me, I could have that done. When I went to the pharmacy on the 28th to pick up two prescriptions, the pharmacist handed them to me with a total of over eleven hundred dollars. Eleven hundred dollars. He said, ‘Your coverage expired August 31st.’ Interesting to me, since I had given my notice on August 4th with my letter of resignation and end date of the 10th, giving you all more than enough time to get out my COBRA packet for there to be no lapse in my coverage. I was able, with a Prescription Savings Card, to get the total amount due down to the  paltry sum of $875.83. Mind you, I cannot live without these medications, and they are not the only two I take.

“At 9:15 am on the 30th, I spoke to someone (I neglected to get their name) who told me that in order to get reimbursed for the $875.83, I was going to have to fork over another $912.81 per month for every month that I want my husband and I to be covered under COBRA. That total is more money that I bring home in a month. Even if I work very, very hard and sell lots and lots of jewelry, that’s still a very hard number to come up with. And on top of that, I still end up paying over $200 out-of-pocket for medication. With insurance.

“Today, I printed out the email with the attached pdf file with the COBRA packet (I have yet to receive the paper copy — will I ever? I’m guessing not at this point) and read this line: ‘Your health plan coverage provided to you and your family by W. Jewelers will be terminated as of 08/10/2008 due to Termination.’ As stated above: I gave notice on the 4th with intent to leave on the 10th. Why am I only now receiving this packet AT MY BEHEST OVER A MONTH LATER? If you people had done your job and sent out the packet on time, I would not have to had lay out $875.83 for two prescriptions and I wouldn’t have this lapse in coverage. I have to go to the pharmacy again in about a half hour, and it is going to cost me another $199.73. I guess I can ‘just pay out-of-pocket until my coverage reinstates.’ And forget about groceries for dinner tonight.”