Tep, you won't be mad if I'm picturing your grampa as PuppetAngel will you?

Dearest Daughter O'Mine,

The Christmas tree is not even down. Do *not* start with me, about not giving you any money to buy books through Scholastic. You know I love to buy you books. I just gave you four, for Christmas. A month before that, I spent 30 bucks at the book mobile.

Go clean your room,
Mommy

...

Dear Scholastic,

Please go to hell; go directly to hell; do not pass go; do not collect two hundred dollars (from my family, you frigging money grubbers). Your selection has gone WAY the hell down hill since the 70s, lemme tell ya. Barbie Books? Hello Kitty books? CDs? Plug and Play games for the TV. Screw you, and the commercialized horse you rode over my wallet with.

You suck,
Me

I think when doctors are good and, you know, decent humans -- which I think is most of the time -- we don't really notice, because they're doing their job, and honestly dealing with whatever caused you to need a doctor in the first place is taking up enough attention, thank you very much, plus you never get enough information to actually figure out what the fuck is going on, so you're totally dependent on -- sorry, I got off track. Anyway, bad doctors make more of an impression than good ones.

Well, that, and the fact that even if they're good there's almost always such an information imbalance* that it's hard to even know if they're good, because you have no clue why the hell they're doing what they are.

Leading up to -- okay, that shit is wack, Tep. The only thing I could think of is if the melanoma was fast-spreading or something... but yeah, that's a hell of a major freaking step to take without some serious deliberation.

(* Okay, not always, and I think the best medical people (which is my catchall for doctors nurses PAs NPs CNMs and whatever else is out there) do try to inform their patient as much as possible. Still, there's a reason it takes years of school to do that stuff, and we're not always going to understand. And I know that makes me hella nervous.)

I got nothin', Tep. Your poor granddad.

Dear Scholastic,

WTF, Cindy? I didn't realize Scholastic had gone so downhill.

Plus, think they could work on that timing thing a little?

My aunt -- the one who lives with him -- is freaking out that if Grandpa goes in a nursing home, he'll end up losing the house. Which she was counting on in a financial, mineminemine sense.

Steph, if he only needs to be in for 3 weeks, the house will not be lost. Medicare covers 100 days of coverage as long as he admitted from a hospital - the first 20 are at 100% covered and the remaining 80 are at 80% covered. Usually, the remaining 20% is covered by a secondary insurance.

Also, they absolutely should have put the house into a trust 5 years ago and that surgeon is a frakkin idiot.

That sucks, Teppy. I think what happens is that specialists these days live in their own little bunkers and never think of anything but treating the condition they specialize in. I think my oncologist is pretty decent about what he does, but if you're problem isn't cancer, he is Dr. Clueless.

Exactly, Sean! Could they have waited, even until after MLK day? I think they actually send out mailers every month or so. I lose track. I'm fairly sure the teachers don't pass them all on to us.

They still offer good books too, but to the kids, the good books look a bit like spinach in a Godiva catalogue, amidst all the Care Bears, Hello Kitty, Barbie, and Cartoon based stuff. She's only in first grade. She is just starting to read, so I suppose I should let her read whatever she wants. I actually do, mostly. We have a lot of Barbie books (thanks to her father's clever placement right around her little pinkie) we've gotten at the grocery store, or whatever.

Right now, she wants less than a dollar from me, but there's something in me making me say no. I think it's the principle of the thing. She had a birthday on 11/25. Christmas just passed. Sometimes, I feel like I need to say "no" or "spend your own money" just for the lesson. Then I waffle, and think "What's the harm? She wants books, not crack." I dunno.

A dollar's not so bad, but this does actually sound like a decent time to have a "spend your own money" conversation.

Well, that's what I initially said, and gave Christmas, her birthday, the book mobile, and having to buy a new car as reasons why I thought she should spend her own money. I want to give her the buck she wants, but I kind of feel like the lesson will be lost. I ended up telling her that we'd talk about it later. I said if we talked about it now, my answer would be no.