Safecracking

This morning I showed up bright and early at the high school, as soon as they opened the building. Oldest son was unable to open his locker after the freshman orientation session on Wednesday morning, after trying in vain for half an hour. Son #3, who normally must be pried from his pillow at 7AM on a school day, wanted to join us, so he popped out of bed at 6:45 to scarf down three waffles...and was therefore along for the ride.

The principal's assistant, bless her heart, took us under her wing as soon as we arrived in the main office. She personally escorted us to the locker and tried the combination. Presto...it opened right away. Seeing the dejected look on my son's face, she explained that there's a trick to it...grabbing the left side of the locker and pushing on it while you pull the door out with your right hand. He tried it a few more times and didn't get it open, so our guardian angel promised to have a custodian loosen the cylinder. Just to be helpful, before we finished with the locker, Son #3 memorized the combination. Ya never know.

We walked the halls in sync with my son's schedule to get him more used to the surroundings. The map looks like a hand (the palm is the central commons area where the library, main office, lecture hall, and auditorium are). But there are some connecting hallways too, like the webbing on a duck's foot. We ran into a friend of ours who teaches earth science there. She gave us some good tips about navigating the corridors, and showed us the magic location of the building's elevator. She also gave us some insider info on some of the teachers...apparently the first period teacher is "tough as nails and doesn't take any %$#@." Some of my best teachers fell into that category!

Wonderful ending to this story...after walking the schedule we went back to the locker and tried it again. This time it opened without a problem. Big relief to cross one item off the "first day worry" list. Whew!

Here's to Your Health

Today we got a memo from our HR department and our chief officers that we would have a new health insurance carrier for medical and pharmacy as of October 1.

The good news: we're not enduring a 32.5% increase in our premium by staying with the previous carrier; it's a major network so all our doctors seem to be in it; we already have some documentation about how it's supposed to work; costs and policies are at least as good as they were before.

The bad news: we have to remember to produce our new insurance cards any time any one of the five of us sees a doctor in the near future (up to a year for those who only see us for annual checkups); we have to verify that everything works as advertised; there's almost always something funky with how the prescription plan handles diabetic supplies. I know, Hubby has been a diabetic for close to 40 years, and we should be used to it by now...we just don't have to like it.

I guess another point for the "good" side is that we have another month to prepare. Off we go into the wild Blue Cross/Blue Shield yonder.

Asking for Help

Hey, I like to think I'm an expert on help because I manage a help desk. But we are in the business of giving it, not receiving it.

This morning my dad was out around town, on foot, as he often is on a weekday morning, running errands. He's 83 years old, and used to work full time until about two years ago when his old beater of a car conked out after more than 200,000 miles. He worked in New Jersey (one heck of a commute, even for a young person) and couldn't afford to get a new car. So now he walks and sometimes he takes the bus when going more than a couple of miles.

My brother alerted me that he'd been trying to call for a few hours, with no answer. Dad normally isn't out for that long. Sure enough, there was a problem. He'd fallen down on the street, and strangers came to his rescue by calling the police. They checked him at the local hospital, treated him for cuts and bruises, and released him. Would you believe that he waited on the corner for the bus home because he didn't want to tell anyone that he needed a ride? My brother scolded him for that (via long distance phone call) and encouraged him to accept assistance from me with grocery shopping and errands that are some distance away.

Of course I followed up with a phone call. Dad basically pooh poohed me, although he did express his appreciation. I felt a bit frustrated, but thinking about it now, I wonder what I will be like when I am 83 and the Three Amigos want me to call them to ask for a ride to the grocery store. I might pooh pooh them unless it were something too heavy for me to carry or unless I were feeling ill. I hope I remember today's events and thoughts some thirty five plus years into the future. If not, remind me please...

Renewal

I made a deal with my twelve-year-old for this morning. If he accompanied me to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my driver's license when they opened at 8:30, we'd go to the middle school afterwards so he could "walk through" his schedule to get ready for the opening of school next Tuesday.

So off we went to the DMV in Bethpage. Stood on a line of about 20 people (which split into two windows) to handle license applications and renewals. At the window, the very cheerful and friendly woman (really!) asked me to provide my signature (which would be scanned for the license) and took my photo (which had not been updated in about 12 years). She told me that the picture came out good; let's see what I think when the license is sent to me! After about one minute we were done, and we got to go sit in a row of pews and wait for our number to come up on the big tote board.

At one point, F023 (three numbers before ours) came up for two windows at the same time, and then repeated three times on the tote board. An obvious computer glitch. My son, who expects unfailing wizardry with anything involving computers, announced, "This computer system sucks." I tried to explain to him how it used to be to go to DMV when I first got my learner's permit, 30 years ago, before any of the customer service was computerized. This is the stuff that nightmares are made of.

You had to show up at the huge building on Privado Road in Westbury, suffering through the local traffic to get near the place, and then circling around to find parking. The first prayer of the day was that you would later recall where you'd left the car. Entering the building with the rest of the sheep, you had to stand on Line 27 for at least three hours no matter what your transaction was. Once you'd survived that experience, you were physically and emotionally drained of whatever energy you'd had for the entire day. People weren't overly cooperative, and it was accepted that it was a necessary evil one had to endure to obtain or renew a license, register or surrender plates, etc. Any other Nassau County old timers recall this drudgery?

When our number came up on the big tote board, we went up to the counter and I had to take the eye test. Son found this amusing, and he did it too (which in turn amused the lady behind the counter). Son had to make sure that my receipt showed "Corrective Lenses Required" just to yank my chain and remind me that my distance vision has deteriorated in my old age. To further underscore the point, the charming lady admired my specs and asked me whether they were progressives (they aren't, but my ophthalmologist keeps threatening this for next year). All told, we were there for about an hour, which was pretty good according to me. Left plenty of time to truck around the school before I had to collect my personal belongings and head on in to work for a late shift. My son's parting shot as we left the DMV was that he'd show up here again in four years when it was time for him to get his learner's permit. Yikes!

How the Other Half Lives

My husband took two weeks of vacation time (one week saved from last year) so he could chill after we got back from Florida. Fair enough. So he has been hanging with the boys the rest of this week while I go to work. It's strangely wonderful to wake up in the morning and worry only about myself and what I have to do that day.

Normally I have to make sure the Amigos are out of bed and start their day, and I have to take at least one of them with me as I go out the door (and make sure that we leave on time so I can get to work at a reasonable hour). That usually entails getting up no later than 5:30, showering, eating breakfast, getting myself ready, and then working on the kids. This week, I didn't have to wake up until at least 6:00 or 6:30 in order to leave the house by 7:30. Also, I was able to take care of organizing some back to school paperwork and straightening up the kitchen, with the knowledge that I was only playing beat the clock with myself. This morning, I left at 6:40 so I could get to work early. Still, a 5:30 wakeup left plenty of time.

Too bad the week's almost over! Waaah!

Traveling Three Ring Circus

So we survived the family road trip to Florida. Hurrah for us! Here are my observations and lessons learned.

• Having extra leg room (e.g. seven passenger van with only five people in it) really helps!
• Taking an empty suitcase or large duffel for souvenirs would have helped.
• Next time we stay overnight in the middle of a long drive, we're taking one change of clothes for everyone, plus toiletries, and putting it in one duffel bag...so all the suitcases don't have to come out of the car at the hotel. I thought of this on the way back home, and it made the hotel experience much easier.
• Having a variety of snacks, plus a case of water, was great.
• Having trash bags for empty snack packs and water bottles was nice.
• Having a power adaptor (electrical plug to car socket) was a plus.
• Having a vehicle with three (!) sockets was very nice: one for the GPS and two for the DVD players and the electronic games.
• Having a printout of Google Maps directions was helpful. It gave us the courage to ignore the GPS when it started telling us to do crazy things that didn't make sense.
• Giving the GPS a cute nickname increases the entertainment factor. We all had a good laugh when our youngest would yell out, "Be quiet, Bertha!"
• Every time we hit a different state, we took a potty break at the welcome center. The kids had a ball picking out road maps and brochures.
• It helps if at least one person in the car is silly enough to come up with creative modifications of place names on the road signs. For instance, in North Carolina...Fayetteville became Fajitaville. (OK I think that being hungry had something to do with it!)

Hope your road trips and summer vacations have all been grand!

Driving Ms. Crazy

We're collecting our thoughts, and our belongings, to drive to Florida to visit my father-in-law and his wife. Don't even THINK about ransacking the house while we're away because we have something much better than a guard dog: my mother. If you're not familiar with the chronicles of my childhood, you're just going to have to trust me.

When I double checked my "car list" with hubby, he said that it sounded like I was going overboard and that we weren't going on maneuvers fercryinoutloud. Well, I thought I was being thorough. And we rented a mini van for the trip so the kids could spread out, so we do have plenty of room inside the passenger part of the car. Is this really excessive?

• EZ-Pass (which alas, is not honored all the way to Florida)
• dollar bills, quarters, dimes, and nickels to make exact change for tolls (I have my brother to thank for that suggestion)
• portable GPS
• tissues, paper towels, wet wipes, car trash bags
• umbrellas for those rapid fire summer Southern rain storms
• two DVD players, chargers, DVDs, CDs
• a case of water bottles and a cooler bag full of snacks
• hubby's insulin kit
• a backpack of "entertainment items" for each kid
• mom's crocheting bag which will have a few books thrown in too (for when hubby is driving)

The Three Amigos have never done a road trip anywhere near this long. Wish me luck!