Goin' OK

So, improv class has been fun, it's going OK and there's one thing that's sure: I suck at improv. Well, you say, that is why you're taking a class on the subject. Of course! But I will be in a scene/game and following key improv tenents--always agree, don't ask a question, LISTEN--and moments go by and the other players have little support from me. My mind just blanks. Well, it doesn't totally blank 'cuz I'm enjoying what everyone else on the stage is doing. Usually with a large, out of character grin on my face. And I just don't seem to form words and sentences that fit. Sometimes I just have a brain glitch.

This week I somehow couldn't remember the word "dome" and that the Astros play at the Astrodome.

I know very little about baseball, and the fact that I know what the Astrodome is but couldn't think of it is scary.

When I got home from the class I noticed my dad had been up and had unlocked the front door and didn't re-lock it. Yikes. This week he's wanting to go outside for no explainable reason again, he hasn't done that in a long time. I'm gonna have to stay home and not go out at all for a while (again, gah!) and watch to see if he continues this and actually goes outside and wanders. He wanted to go outside early this morning, IN THE DARK, but he came right back in. This is kind of scary. Of course, he waited until the weather finally turned cold outside. He didn't try to leave the house much at all during the summer. More on this later.

Whose Class is it Anyway?

A few months ago I was looking around for some local acting classes. So after being discouraged by the price of other acting instruction in the area I was tipped off to this awesomly priced beginning improv class and enrolled immediately. Wednesday was the first session. Though it's a beginning session there were some more experienced improvisers in the group, too. We had some brief instruction/lecture, followed by several games, most of which I did poorly since they required very fast verbal and simultaneous physical responses. It was fun, but I don't think my brain is hardwired for that. I'm hoping to do some rewiring with the class.

So THAT Happened

Yep. It happened in August, actually. I was pretty much not upset about it, since it was me backing into my friend's (very hard front) bumper. Gah!

Picture of Depression

I read an article recently pointing out the importance of treating depression in the elderly. Seems it's often untreated partly due to being unreported, partly due to the assumption that it's normal for one to be depressed about aging, losing abilities, and therefore it doesn't need to be treated. My dad has been getting increasingly depressed over the past six months, especially the past three. It makes sense...he's more tired, has few things to do (sleep, eat, watch tv [which also means sleep since he falls asleep]), and he has very little social interaction. I take him to visit my mom once or twice a week, and even then he usually just naps in a chair. But just because it makes sense that his depression would worsen it doesn't mean treatment is unnecessary.

Last weekend I called for an appointment with my dad's primary physician. The callback came early Monday and I had to cancel it due to my own lack of adequate sleep...it wouldn't have been safe to drive. The next available time was Friday. Ironically, my dad seemed to be very upbeat that day and was joking around with the doctor. His doc prescribed a low dose antidepressant to start. I asked why Kaiser's policy is for him to see his medical doctor for this instead of seeing a psychiatrist who specializes in elder psych but the doctor just shrugged her shoulders, saying they change rules all the time. Hmm.

It's too early to have results from the new medicine, but for whatever reason my dad was also in good spirits yesterday. That was enhanced later in the day by a visit from some long-time acquaintances from my dad's church. Instead of sleeping my dad stayed awake and chatted with his visitors. It could have been that one of the med's side effects is wakefulness, or just that he had something to do besides watch tv. Bottom line is he was better. I thanked our guests and explained to them that it has a big, positive effect when people stop by to see him.

Ghost or Ninja?

This Halloween was the first time in years that I've had an idea for a costume that I was excited about. It was also the first time I had a use for it. It's not so much I'm a boring person as being a caregiver 24/7, I haven't recently bothered b/c I'm generally stuck at home. It's only in the past year or so that I've started forcing myself to get out and do my best to have fun, despite the guilt, which was probably wise because if not my head might explode. This year I had two spooky options lined up. When the first one fell through late in the game on party weekend, there wasn't enough time for plan B. I also got no love from friends later in the week so I had no choices to explore. Bummer. I'm not going to describe the costume idea just in case I can put it to use next time. I always seem to have to wait for "next time".

It's too depressing and low-value to say my friends ditched me and even just saying I stayed home might make it seem like that's what I do, like I'm not interested in fun things. So I came up with a slightly amusing (to self) response if anyone asked...

So for Halloween I went to this party dressed as a ghost, and it was like my best costume ever! I know this because a few days later i was talking to some hotties I met there, and they were like, "Well, what were you?", and I said, "A ghost," and they go, "I don't remember seeing you there," and I said, "EXACTLY!"

I would like to sub ninja for ghost but ghost is a lot easier to say with the right cadence for the bit.

Turnaround Time

At long last, my IHSS paycheck for April 06 (yes 2006!) has been fixed and I finally got it Wednesday! Lost "hours of care" for my dad that hadn't been properly (by law) given to him that month have been finally paid. It took 13 months to resolve and it would have been so much simpler to just give up the fight, which I'm sure a lot of people do, which is partly why agencies like this get away with it. It was a pretty extreme bunch of hoops I was made to jump, a lot of time spent waiting as IHSS dragged it on, and on, and it's great that I can finally put this particular issue behind me. Now financial goals I'd had to put off are finally in the works! Booyah! or whatever. This means I can also begin to make other plans that I also had to cancel or postpone last year. Seems like I've had a lot of bad luck the past year and it's time for a turnaround.

While all this has been going on I've been spending as much time as possible working on music. It's something I can really zone out with and gives me an outlet for some volatile energy that could be explosive and maybe unhealthy if not expressed somehow. For a variety of reasons I have not been doing anything related to animating :( I'm going to return to the world of animation, just I've had too many negative things to deal with and it was affecting my attitude toward all creativity. Luckily, music wasn't impacted so heavily, thus that's what I've been working on. There are so many ideas in my head for tunes and it just takes so much time to get any of them arranged and recorded. For the curious, I've posted some samples on my music myspace.

3% Minus 7% Equals Negative Cost of Living Adjustment

One more related item and it's not good, either. My dad's share of cost for Medi-Cal went up after the recent "re-determination" (why don't they just say review?). It is now 90% of his gross income. Let me repeat that because it seems so ridiculously wrong: My dad's Medi-Cal share of cost is ninety percent of his income! My parents, who along with millions of other retired Americans receive Social Security, got a cost-of-living raise of less than 3%. This caused their shares of cost for Medi-Cal, based on income level, to increase 7%! As ridiculous as that probably sounds, something tells me my parents have it easy compared to some people out there. How can this unfairness be allowed? It's insanity.

IHSS Derails Celebration Again

I finally received backpay that IHSS has owed me since last April. That was a big relief. The process required new timesheets for the months affected. But there was a hitch; payroll mailed timesheets for me to fill out and mail back, but the one for April was missing. I had to call and request it twice and it took 2 weeks to finally get it in the mail (postal delivery time is usually 1 or 2 days). The good news I alluded to in my last post is that I was also given an extra 10 hours of pay for some of the other months last year. But my celebration was cut short.

When my paychecks arrived I found a rather large error to my detriment. Once again, IHSS over withheld the share of cost from my wages by $800!! I was fuming. I only just got reimbursed last month for a similar screw-up that happened 10 months ago, and now they've done it again! I phoned payroll immediately and was told they'd inform the social worker and get back to me. Days later I hadn't heard from anyone so I called again. This time they said it would take "a little bit of time". The social worker was not in the office, so I left a message and still haven't got a callback. I seriously hope they're not gonna make me wait 9 months for reimbursement again. This is beyond unbelievable!

It's a good thing I was cautiously optimistic. Experience with this agency taught me to be wary of errors and delays, so I put off some of my plans (like paying down my student loan), and had saved up just in case. I'm very lucky to have done this 'cause it could have been a financial disaster otherwise. Once again, my plans have to wait.

I'm beginning to think maybe this is just how things go when you're dealing with government agencies. I gotta wonder though, how much damage is done to other IHSS recipients and their families who don't have the capacity to fight for a correction or even know they've been cheated. Something more has got to be done to protect people from ongoing abuse for which there are currently no consequences.

Partial Vindication Afoot?

My Medi-Cal/IHSS battle has been brutal. it has been a road of sharp rocks and deep mud, thorns and rotting carcasses, and I have traveled it almost entirely alone since literally no person or advocate I have contacted has actually done anything to help, save for a couple. It added pressure and stress to an already overwhelming responsiblity to my parents, obliterated important financial and career goals, and it's been hell.

But there is something of possible good that may be starting to emerge from the stench of it all. If I am correct there will be a (small) degree of vindication, or relief greater than what the original "best case" outcome was expected to be. It won't make up for the abuse I've been subjected to, but it's a little extra which helps. I'll take it! And this will be in addition to the deal mentioned in my previous post.

I don't mean to be cryptic about it, I just don't want to celebrate prematurely. Nothing is yet confirmed. I received some new information in the post today that could be great if it goes through as it appears. I've been wrong before, since the government tends to work in senseless, illogical ways sometimes, so I'm just "cautiously optimistic" about it. It's nothing "huge" but then, coming out of this at all positive is huge.

Then maybe this can be the start of getting on with things and it won't be so long that I can return to animating!

Stay tuned.

I'm 1 and 9

1 out of 9 is mostly good news. If you've read past posts you may know I have been struggling with some seriously troublesome bureaucracy that has to do with services my parents receive from the state and county; earned wages the county refuses to pay, entitlements arbitrarily denied and other stuff that I've been trying to fix for more than a year.

When there are problems with these things, the law allows the recipient to request a "fair hearing" within 90 days to try to resolve the problems before an administrative judge. As my parents' representative I had requested hearings last August for 2 of the issues and never got a response. I even re-requested one of them, but it seems all my requests were ignored, misdirected or lost until well after the 90-day limit had expired. Seems like just more bs to me. At stake were more than 500 hours of earned wages from last year which IHSS has refused to pay, citing various ambiguous "regulations".

Months later I finally got a hearing scheduled. Then a few days prior to the hearing I got a call from a representative of the county (which runs IHSS) to propose what basically amounts to a settlement in lieu of proceeding with the hearing. I was offered about 85% of the unpaid wages I was requesting. Though I believe I have a solid case, there's no way of telling how the judge would have ruled, but the county's offer was guaranteed. I've not had good luck with these things before so rather than risk losing it all I had to accept the offer of 85%.

Settling does leave one of the issues uncorrected, which could negatively affect me (and other caregivers) in the future. And even though 85% is a lot better than zero, I still feel I've been cheated out of wages I've earned through blood, sweat and tears. And I've still got about 7 other problems to try to get fixed before it's all over. The upside is that the money will be put to good use and will help with some of my short term goals. 1 for 9 is much better than 0 for 9.

No WONDER!

Now I know why stuff has been so screwy in the past year! From now on it's all gonna be great! All thanks to this best-selling DVD/book! According to The Secret, all the crap I've been going through is because I've been thinking about crap! It all makes perfect sense! All I have to do is stop thinking of all that poo and start thinking of, I dunno, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and sunshine and going on holiday! Oh, plus world peace. Then my mental rays (or something) will "vibe" out into the universe like specially tuned magnets and very soon I will be enjoying peanut butter cup heaven. Or maybe I'll receive an advertisement with the newspaper that has a picture of like Hawaii on it!

Ridiculing a DVD I have not watched aside, I did think about sunshine one time and the next day the sun was out, so I can't say it doesn't work.

Might the reason I'm often thinking of/stressing over/scrambling to fix a bunch of BSes be that's what I've been experiencing? Maybe if I can get that stuff to go away I'll have room in my melon to focus intently on tranquility, bliss and my dream animation career that got t-boned at the intersection of Broke Street and Family Obligations Way.

Lotto

I admit to playing lotto occasionally, despite ridiculously bad odds. Everyone always points out you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning a lotto jackpot. True, but most people don't actively seek out lightning. Besides, the ping-pong balls don't know the odds.

Read The Fine Print

I've never been great at asking for things, sometimes I don't know what to ask for. That is not the case when a company has tried to rip me off and I want a correction.

I've been a T-Mobile customer for as long as I've had a cell phone. Last summer I upgraded my phone, which seemed to be defective. The phone was still under warranty (less than 2 months old) and I called to arrange for a replacement, which had to be mailed to me. The person on the phone said they will charge me $9.95 to ship the phone. I griped. Later I read the details of the warranty which specifically state T-Mobile will not charge for shipping for replacement parts or phones. I called back and was put on 2-6 minute hold at least three times (!!) during the call. The customer service agent tried every angle to weasel out of what the warranty clearly said. Frustrated and insulted, I ended the call. When the bill arrived they added an extra 78-cents to the $9.95 for "tax"!! Later I wrote a dispute letter and included a photocopy of the warranty with the related text hi-lighted. The next bill showed a credit, but annoyingly, only for $9.95; they did not credit the tax.

I know this is a long boring story but the point is I read the fine print, then asked for them to remove the shipping charge and they did. I had to send a letter, but it worked. Most of the time when I phone in to ask for something like this it's handled right there on the phone. Sometimes it pays to ask for what you want. It would be great if the county and state were so cooperative.

Mantra at 2 AM

At this point in my dad's illness, I am pretty much awake 24-hours a day. I have to remember a certain mantra not only at 2:00 am but also 3:00, 4:00, 6:00 am, and any other moment day or night: People with Alzheimer's sometimes have no control over their behavior. Trying to reason with them is futile.

My mom has been living in a care home for nine months now. I think I am still not over the trauma of making that choice (actually, there was no other choice), and though her mood finally seemed to improve in the past 3 months she is still very unhappy there and wants to come home. It's heartbreaking over and over again when I have to leave her there when I visit. At least she's feeling a bit better overall now.

The time will soon arrive for my dad to move there as well, in fact, it kinda already has. But thanks to the BS with Medi-Cal and IHSS, I'm in a conundrum. My dad needs to go into long-term care, but my income and health benefits come from taking care of him at home. Not only will I lose my job, in that situation all of my dad's current income will go to the care home. I do have a plan for all that, and through careful budgeting I am surviving okay on the partial* wages I get through IHSS. However, the fiasco I'm having with IHSS has forced me to more than double the time it will take to reach certain goals. If it worked the way it's supposed to I could go forward with my plan now. Not all is lost, I'll get there it will just take much longer.

*I am paid for about 4 hours out of the 12-20 I am "on the job" each day...I'm not kidding.

These Kind of Thoughts

I was just pondering some nonsense recently.

Shouldn't octopus' legs be called octacles instead of tentacles since there's eight of them? And how do we know they're legs and not arms, anyway?

Would a ten-legged octopus be called a tentopus?

These are the kinds of thoughts you get in the wee hours of the morning with little sleep.

That's More Like It!

The tv commercial I worked on in May has been on air for a while so now I can finally post the red bag animation I did for SureWest! The most fun part of this freelance job was animating the floppy handles. I think I got them a bit too "rubber bandy" in spots, but that's okay. Client liked it. I was so excited because this was my first ever freelance character job. Woo! I'm only showing what I worked on here, which was used for the intro and outro of the spot. It's not perfect, so let me know your notes for the next time I do a paper sack!

I totally lucked out with the bike. It was a big bummer the mountain bike I wanted was out of stock, but I convinced the guy at the bike shop to give me the same deal on a better one, with components that are quite a few steps higher than my original choice. I'm still recovering from my crash, so I can't ride for reals yet, but I did get on (with helmet) and spin around the court in front of my house. I noticed the pain in my right wrist after only a few minutes with my weight on the handlebars, so it will be a while before I can go for a serious ride (plus I have to work up to it). I have never owned a "real" bike before, so this is a serious upgrade, and will probably last years (if dogs stay out from under my wheels!). After the let down with the other bike this is more like it!

Same Luck

Got a postcard saying the bike I ordered is not happening. Same luck as everything else, I suppose. I keep trying though. I haven't found another one in my price range. Maybe the sign says Don't get a bike. We'll see.

I'm officially not going to return right away to AnimationMentor to re-take Class 6. Nothing has improved in the past month and there's just not a way for me to focus on that right now. It will be lucky if I can get some things ironed out enough to return for the Winter session in January. Meanwhile, it would be great to get some practice in, but my mouse/pen hand is still killin'. It's getting better but seems to have hit a plateau. Should be alright soon, though.

LED Toys

For some reason I am crazy about LED stuff. Don't know why. Blinky lights. LEDs use very little power, almost zero heat, and last an eternity compared to incandescent bulbs. Many cities have switched the lights in traffic signal fixtures to LEDs. Eventually LEDs may replace most of the lighting in our homes.

Some LED novelties are kinda dumb. I found this "lighted Pen Fan" on clearance the other day. I think it's silly to combine a fan and pen, but I got this thing because I've been using LEDs with my Nikon to make "art". I figured the LEDs on the fan might look cool for that.

Here's one of my older LED pix.

And here's one with the new Fan/Pen.

Holding Pattern

Workers in Sacramento County have been on strike for the past week, so I was really relieved I got my paycheck last week. I had wondered if IHSS staff were also striking. With no response from any of the people I've called or written about my IHSS mess, I phoned my case worker's supervisor yesterday. On her voicemail greeting she said, "I will be out of the office on strike...until we have a contract." Nice. Plus convenient.

I wish I could go on strike whenever my employer subjects me to BS. But can you imagine what would happen if caregivers went on stike? A lot of elderly and disabled people would go hungry, get sick, or hurt. Some of them would die. Most caregivers, however, are taking care of family members, and I doubt any would leave the person they take care of. The state and county know this, and it's one of their pocket aces that allows them to get away with crap. I/we fully have reasons to strike, but it's just not an option.

So instead of getting results I just have to wait around until the county workers' contract is settled, extending even further the already long, drawn-out ordeal of getting IHSS to pay wages they owe me back to April. It's been about 5 months, what's another 3 weeks?

A Little "Yay!" Helps A Lot

In the middle of all this crazy stuff going on, I got a nice surprise last week! Local AnimationMentor AMigos Konrad and Justin stopped by with some goodies from them and other buddies at school! Konrad made a nice card and every-buddy signed wishing me a speedy recovery from my bike smash. Just the day before I got an surprise box delivered to my door. It was from Alison, and inside a really nice book with amazing illustrations by Shaun Tan. Since then I've been getting email from other classmates wishing me well as they hear about my mishap, also cool, since I'm not on campus anymore (waa). Thanks everyone, it felt great to have a bit of "yay!"

Saturday I finally got my first "full" paycheck from IHSS, which was for work in August. The July one was screwed up and they only paid me half, and April through June I didn't get any pay at all! Grr. At least the August check was right. As if that wasn't enough, I finally got the final payment for a freelance job I did in May! Yay! I almost felt like I won the lottery or something. Okay, it wasn't nearly like that, but it was a good week, anyway.

The bike I wiped out on wasn't damaged in the crash, but it's not a very good bike. I've been planning for some time to upgrade and for a while I was very interested in these chainless bikes. Trouble is, practically nobody has ever heard of them and guys at nearly all the bike shops I went to seemed to hate the idea of a bike with no chain, less maintenance, no grease, and smoother shifting. You would think it's cuz they make their living fixing standard chain-driven bikes...oh wait, they do. Hmm. Well, since I couldn't dig up enough key info, not to mention my own concerns about the bikes, I decided to order a regular mountain bike from IronHorse. I didn't go crazy with one of their pricier bikes, but the bike I'm getting has fairly decent components and it's going to be a gigantic step up in quality from my department-store bike. By the time the shop gets the bike in and built (about 2 weeks) I should be healed enough to start riding again.