Ginger- you can also keep your health insurance while also taking advantage of group coverage for as long as it lasts. There is added hassle of having to declare primary and secondary and most will make you file with EVERYONE which is a PIA...but i had private insurance plus group coverage throughout my theatre career because i never really trusted the group coverage to continue.

Seconding (or thirding?) going to the interview. Good practice, if nothing else.

IOmeN: i have now sent my mother the address for my potential first home SIX times. Just got an email from her asking for the address so she can check proximity of some B&B. The irony? The address in question is in the quoted "reply" text from my last message which she did not erase. I put big stars and exclamation points around the address, just to make it clear that "4230 SE 65th" is an address and not just random numbers and letters. *sigh* I really, really love my mother.

Portland addresses are kind of weird and confusing for the rest of us, as logical as they are once you are used to them.

Idle thought, is there any reason I shouldn't use a steam mop on the bathtub?

Idle thought, is there any reason I shouldn't use a steam mop on the bathtub?

The common bathtub takes extremes of temps and the chemicals we use on our bodies, not to mention a stray auto part cleaning here and there. If it needs it and works, go for it.

If you have a fiberglass bathtub, it might be more susceptible to steam heat, better to try it in small batches. Porcelain? The older the tougher.

Ginger, much ~ma to you.

The next trip I really want to take: Iceland --> Berlin --> Thailand.

Anyone going to "Where the Wild Things Are"?

I heard an interview on NPR with the director, Spike Jonze, who said that when Maurice Sendak previewed the finished film, Maurice got up and hugged him.

That's a pretty good endorsement.

And hey, Muppets!

GC, congrats on the confirmation of health. Exciting baby stuff!

My psychiatrist thinks I'm depressed because I don't sound as "peppy" as usual and I haven't been going out much lately.

These people can be such idiots sometimes. My GP's always asking about my "mood", while I'm bouncing around cheerfully in my wheelchair opposite her. She doesn't really get the concept of stabilized mental illness, or that I take medication to prevent relapse. Also, I'm fairly sure she thinks my complex genetic condition is psychosomatic. Bloody GPs.

The next trip I really want to take: Iceland --> Berlin --> Thailand.

Heh. Cool. The Girl and I want to go to Norway (no, not Kenya). Northern Lights! Possibly next year.

I'm sewing a skirt out of a shirt while listening to Mudhoney.

Aside of that heat wave (that will last until Monday!), everything is good.

Aside of that heat wave (that will last until Monday!)

Ooh, I hope The Girl packed right. She just left for your part of the world. It's been heavy clothes weather here.

It's an "A/C is an essential part of surviving" type of weather here, Seska.

My mother and her mother are conspiring to drive me crazy.

My mother's visiting London and staying with my grandmother. All week my grandmother has been sending me e-mails demanding that I come over for dinner with them tonight. In Friday evening traffic, getting up to the suburbs will take over an hour, and then I'd have to get back again, and I'm very very tired at the moment, and I've been trying to explain this with requests that they could please try to remember that I don't have spare energy anymore, while offering them alternatives for meeting up. This information has been ignored repeatedly, with requests from my grandmother for me to call my mother and "discuss it" (i.e. be pressured to change my mind) until I stopped responding to the e-mails.

This morning, my mother leaves me voicemail saying they'd love me to come over for dinner tonight, and could I please ring to confirm when I'll be arriving.

Gah. Family that regularly and conveniently ignore the fact that their daughter's been disabled for the past four years. It's not like it happened yesterday, people.