aggravation and (no) motivation

It was raining this morning, a nice steady rain that we need though it's stopped now. The cat was not convinced that it was raining enough to be inside but I wouldn't let her lay out in the rain so she settled for laying on top of some of my paperwork.

So a nice laid back morning catching up on y'all's posts.

Yesterday morning though was anything but laid back. I had a 9:30 appointment with the dermatologist in El Campo 15 minutes down the road. About 3 months ago I contacted my primary care doc's office for a referral to the dermatologist. I had been to her years ago before Medicare and I was happy enough with her care but she's gone in the direction of skin care products and non-surgical procedures to reverse the effects of aging. I went to the other dermatologist in El Campo (none in Wharton) but he has since retired. So back to making an appointment. I checked my insurance to make sure she was in my network (yes), called my PCP for a referral and when they notified me it had been sent, I called for an appointment and the soonest I could get in was 2 1/2 months. So fast forward to yesterday when I showed up for my appointment and handed over my insurance card...oh, the office lady said, we don't take insurance from HMOs (despite my insurance company's web site telling me she was in the network) and you need a referral she says. Told her I had a referral and she had it when I made the appointment. Oh, she says, that referral expired. WTF?! An immediate frustrated and angry call to the insurance customer service line revealed that the doc is in my network but they can't make her take my particular HMO policy (they have others that are not HMO) and yes I would need a new referral and do you have the number of your PCP because this number is no good. Aaaargh! I finally told both parties never mind, I'd deal with it when I got home. Fine. I didn't want to go see that dermatologist in the first place.

So long story short, I called the old number (they recently closed the offices in Wharton and moved to Sugar Land 35 minutes down the road), got transferred to the new number, made an appointment for my annual physical and requested a referral to a dermatologist in Rosenberg 30 minutes down the road who does take my insurance (I called and checked) and whose lead time is only a couple of weeks and he's a good looking youngish man (anybody younger than 70 is youngish to me) instead of a woman whose main concern is fending off the visible effects of aging.

The rest of my day was just as unsatisfying. I went over to the shop determined to start on some new work and did spend a couple of hours repairing the toes on a wax lizard and thinking about how to proceed with this piece which the plan is to use both the glass casting and the modeling glass and I just didn't get very far. It's been so long since I've done any new work that I'm sluggish and uninspired. Not really excited or motivated. Still, I need to put in a couple of hours a day every day until it clicks. Having said that I may not get over there today. I want to finish my book and go to the library and I have to go to the store and get cat food and I'm sitting here writing this post and it's already noon. And now it's raining again.

As unproductive as yesterday was, my mood is still buoyant. Trump is done and has no possible chance of overturning the election no matter how much he and the Republicans try. Rumors trickling out of the White House describe him as financially broke and demoralized and depressed and afraid of being arrested spending his days watching TV or talking on the phone trying to get people to go to bat for him. Another of his law firms has quit. At this point it's not Trump so much as the Republicans refusing to concede that Biden is president elect and stonewalling the transition which is putting the country at risk as we no longer have a functioning president, as much as he ever functioned, all to keep their base ginned up for the two run-off elections in Georgia which they are desperate to win because if they lose then they won't have the ability to obstruct the Democrat agenda. And best of all, this past week has been mostly devoid of Trump...no rallies, no press conferences, no dominating the news with his lies and butthole pucker of a mouth and it has been wonderful. As a result, my afib hasn't been completely dormant but the few times it has tried have been mild and short and I really think even that will go away, that the medication will be able to do a better job.

And thanks for all the kind words about my work. I still have two pages to update on the website...the news page and the archive gallery. Both those pages still have the links to the carved glass commission work with which I made my living for over 40 years but I've removed them on all the others.