A Doomed Romance at Traffic Court

I got a ticket because my left headlight periodically takes a little me-time and turns off. The competent people at the trustworthy garage say they can’t fix it until it breaks. And then, they refused to loan me a crowbar or long wrench. When you turn the ignition off and back on, the light mostly remembers its primary mission and illuminates several inches beyond the dust and grime camouflaging the occasional naps it takes.

At one of the more inopportune moments in my recent life, I was accosted by a member of our Harbor Police (“the proud, the few, the airport police, who mostly say, “you can’t park in the pickup zone”).

Habor Policewoman:  I stopped you because I couldn’t read your rear license plate through the…

WISIMH: …perfectly legally installed…

HP:  …scooter lift. So let me check your front plate.

WISIMH:  Please-be-on, please-be-on, please-be-on.

HP: Your front left headlight it out.

WISIMH: (Pretty much goes without saying)

Me:  Can you give me a second, please? (I turn off the car and then turn it back on). Now, could you check again, please?

HP:  What do you know, it’s on!  But I have to give you a fix-it ticket because I saw it was out.

WISIMH:  Or, because you don't believe in miracles! Or because you’re a small-minded authoritarian jackass who likes to wear a pretty uniform and push people around to compensate for your humorously short stature, especially people who clearly live with somebody who drives a scooter, which, you’d think was punishment enough. Your father probably drinks too much, and your mother probably takes too many pills, and probably mainly because you’re a great disappointment to them both and still live in their basement.

So, two weeks later, I drove to the police station, where a nice policeman walked out to my car as I prayed silently to the martyrs and saints of headlight wiring (I’m from a long line of idol-worshipping Papists and we have saints for everything. Pretty sure it’s Saint Mother Theresa, patron saint of human brood cows and poorly wired headlights.) The light went on and he signed the ticket.

He explained I had to take the ticket to the courthouse next door and pay $25 to dismiss the ticket. Which I did. Or tried to do. After waiting in no line at all, I was told I’d have to go to the Superior Court branch where traffic court is and pay there. The so-funny-you’ll-forget-to-laugh thing is that at traffic court there are no winners and losers: no approximately half of the public who win their cases. Everybody at traffic court is a pissed off loser, including the guys manning the security checkpoint, strategically placed immediately inside a south-facing plate glass window in the full glare of the afternoon sun.

So I went through the second metal detector of the day, coincidentally forgetting to take my phone out of my pocket. Again. I do this routinely to tell The Man what I think of his pointless security that has probably already given me a brain tumor. I play the slightly deaf and moderately stupid old lady card and I’m shocked (!) the 50% of the time they catch me sneaking in my cellphone slash WMD detonator through the white turnstile instead of putting it into a clear plastic basket and shoving it into the maw of the Xerox machine. I feel much safer, especially because I’m an old white lady and my pants fit so they won’t shoot me.

The line to pay traffic tickets is a very long cinderblock hallway painted in a lovely two-tone shade of battleship grey on the bottom and desecrated communion wafer white on top, clearly designed to induce despair and abandonment of all hope, and to create maximum ricochet spread of lethal cinderblock debris in the event of a suicide bombing. On one side of the long hall are what suspiciously look like rows of church pews but which, upon reflection are from old courtrooms. You sit yourself down at the end and slowly slide along the hallway to Room 207 (which must be what the sign at the end of the hall says, but it’s too far to read from here) and watch as people who can’t figure out we’re in line march all the way up to the door and then take the walk of shame back down to their proper place in the pew queue.

Except for the guy who made an appointment and walked right in to pay his ticket to hell, and we – by unspoken agreement - hacked him into little pieces with our debit cards as he came out. His remains are even now being spread out beneath the church pews and carried out on the soles of the Crocs of everybody who didn’t make an appointment.

Guy on My Right: (Addressing the Girl on My Left) Are you in Marketing at SDSU?

WISIMH:  This guy must be a right genius. Her SDSU laptop case and Marketing Jargon Workbook sure had me fooled. I had her pegged for a model with her golden skin and perfectly adorable size 3 sundress that cost more than my monthly Social Security check.

Girl on My Left:  Yeah, I’m in Ms. Something German Sounding’s class.

Guy:  I had her, she’s a tough grader but I loved her lectures in How to Understand What Your Boss Meant to Say.

Girl:  Does she grade on a curve?

Guy:  Yeah, I never got higher than a C+ on any tests, but I got a B in the class.

WISIMH:  Passing over the fuckedup-ness of the grading system, are you hitting on this chick? Because I’m sitting right here between you, and sweetie, she’s so far out of your league that even your newest model iPhone and 2012 market-speak isn’t going to impress her. There are rhinestones on her lime green high-tops. The lady has her own Bedazzler, son. Don’t embarrass us all.

Girl:  What a relief (spoken with genuine relief).

There follows a discussion about what class she’s in and what year and we establish that he’s a graduate but strangely reticent wrt/his gainful employment, if any. He then asks her where she went before State. Mesa, she replies, referring to the flagship campus of the local Community College system, the safety school for those who couldn’t push hard enough on the front door to get into DeVry Institute. He then asks her where she went to high school.

WISIMH:  Really? Why not just head straight for what NFL team she favors? This will not end well.

Girl:  I’m not from around here.

WISIMH:  Permit me to translate: I don’t want to talk to you about local high schools because my worldview extends beyond a 20-mile radius of traffic court. In fact, to cut straight to the bottom line: please stop talking to me you yokel.

Guy:  (Cluelessly) Where are you from?

Girl: Brazil.

Me:  (Sotto voce) Swing and a miss.

WISIMH:  Son. You’re talking about “curating a collection” of “marketing material” to “manage customer relations” with a hot chick from Brazil, and not to mention an old tired woman between you who is giving off a vibe of frustration and impatience strong enough to create a local microclimate of misery and oily resentment that is sucking the romance out of the vicinity like a bullet hole sucks atmosphere from a passenger cabin at 55,000 feet. You’re embarrassing our whole pew because we have become a silent unwilling audience to your humiliation.

Girl:  I should figure out if I have all my paperwork here. (Rummaging in designer bag big enough to cater a lunch for the entire waiting hall) Ahh, here it is: $1,200 speeding ticket. 

Murmurs of awe and admiration on both sides of us from people who appear to collectively know this means she was going very fast in a very fast car and thus has earned a certain amount of pew-queue cred only known to the most elite echelon of DUI regulars and muscle-car 18-25 non-marketing majors.

By now, we’re at the head of the line and the three of us are standing up to enter Room 207, and we get to break the news to the idiots who get all the way up here to the end of the hall and think they can simply stand behind us and cross the sacred “Wait here Until Called” line painted on the threshold of Room 207. I gently tell them we’ve been waiting since last Wednesday, and they should have made an appointment. Because we’re all BFFs here at the front of the 45 minute waiting line.

Then, when I receive The Call, I enter the sanctum sanctorum where three of the seven windows are open. Which seems about right, right? If it’s that way it is to get into heaven, I’m so jumping off the cloud.

Bad news, everyone. It turns out my ticket isn’t in the system yet because dickhead harbor policewoman hasn’t filed the paperwork from 3 weeks ago – almost certainly because either her father or her mother OD’d and she has taken leave and at this very moment she’s at their deathbed as they curse her for marrying an unemployed marketing major from SDSU.

And thus the despondent cashier can’t even take my money. I suspect she gets yelled at a lot. I would have asked if she knew the number for the suicide hotline, but I was afraid she might know it by heart; maybe even roll up her sleeve and show me where she has the number tattooed, or hand me a pre-printed card.

Fortunately, the entertainment was worth the wait. I also learned I can make a fucking appointment, and I should wear body armor when I return to pay my $25.

Preventive Medicine Means Something Different Than You Think

In the end no one will sell you what you need,

You can’t buy it off the shelf,

You got to grow it from the seed.

 - Chris Smither, No

Today, I met with the endocrinologist who is the gatekeeper – I mean, the specialist  - at Kaiser who I have to convince that I can’t tolerate statins, and who would, I’d dared to hope, authorize a referral outside the Kaiser system for periodic lipid aphresis to maintain healthy cholesterol levels.

Doc:  So, I see that Genetics declined your request for a test to determine if your high cholesterol is familial.

Me:  Yup. They said if I had heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, I’d already be dead. So, I’ve got that going for me. Only have the homozygous kind. Probably. Guess without the test, we’ll just have to “think” that’s what it is. Like the physical medicine specialist “thinks” my statin-caused pain is probably from arthritis, not statins.

Doc:  Do you want me to refer you to see Genetics to discuss it further?

Me:  Nope. I’m done. I pick my battles, and you win this one.

Doc: (Sputtering in discomfort. (Although med school may have included a class in how to deliver bad news to a patient, they apparently didn't cover receiving bad news from a patient.)

Me:  Doc, with all due respect for you and the fact that I believe you honestly care, no. You think I’m not allergic to statins and should increase my dose because it’s the “treatment of choice”. On the other hand, I know my family history and personal medical history better than you and your computer. Based on over 30 years personal experience, I am unable to tolerate statins without pain that affects my quality of life. I’m tolerating the pain caused by the minimal dose - which is the maximum dose I intend to take. So, forget the genetic test which was my attempt to qualify for a clinical trial of a non-statin cholesterol lowering drug only open to those diagnosed with familial high cholesterol. I’m that tired of being seen as a stupid old woman who conducts her medical research on internet conspiracy sites and is expected to swallow whatever you dish out without question or complaint. I’m sorry that you are so surprised to find I would like to participate in life and death decisions about my medical treatment.

Doc:  (Clearly discombobulated) Well, I’d like your records from previous provider to confirm your allergy to statins.

Me:  No. I did request them, but we all know that never works. I also know what I know. And if you have to put your hands in the spear-wound in my side to know I’m bleeding out then you’re no better than the patronizing people in genetics or my previous cardiologist. I’m telling you about my condition based on my experiences since I started taking Mevacor (one of the first statins, if I’m not mistaken) when it first became available in the early 80s. There may be some karmic balance here in the fact that while my word is clearly not enough for you, your words that you give a crap are not working for me. And by the way, I’m unbelievably sorry for being such a bitch, but I’m too old to play the game any more. Nothing personal, ok?

Doc: (First trying to insist it’s not a game, but put somehow put off by the look on my face) Well, what do you want me to do?

Me:  Refer me to UCSD for lipid aphresis?

Doc:  No…. (for various reasons I stopped listening to after I realized I’d have to return to persuade her department chair to get a referral and made an executive decision not to bother).

She did suggest there’s an increased risk for mortality with aphresis and I should do more research, and I opined as how I’m already at a pretty high risk for mortality what with my cholesterol, other stroke risk factors, and a-fib and suchlike. I’m so fucking tired of this shit.

Doc:  So, what else would you like from me?

Me:  Remind me to request my medical records again, follow up with you via e-mail in 2 weeks and continue to take the half dozen prescription and OTC meds I’m taking for cholesterol without regard to how the side-effects diminish my quality of life. And, tell me to have a good day. Ok?

Doc:  Yes, that. And have a good day.

That’s how I recall this morning’s visit to a nice young doctor who only wanted to help me but was confounded by my intransigence in the face of her obvious empathy and determination to stick to the playbook. She might have made some notes in my file with her version of how things went slightly differently.

The result however, is not in dispute. It was a waste of both our time. I was prevented from getting a medical solution to my high cholesterol problem. So, now you know what preventive medicine really means.

So, I renewed my medical marijuana card. The waiting room ambience was not as classy as Kaiser, but I have a solution to my pain problem that doesn’t involved increasing use of the addictive opiates prescribed by Kaiser. We’ll worry about the a-fib when I meet with my cardiologist later this week. Really looking forward to that.

Mediocre Food, Music and Company

I don’t socialize much. It’s not that I’m an unsociable person. It’s more that I don’t know that many people who are smart enough I’d bother to kill them and eat their brains.

For example, last night. Dinner at a chain slightly more upscale than Applebees. For a dozen. The ambient noise was like back when the old PSA engine repair facility was a few miles from my house and they’d test jet engines in this huge hangar just west of Miramar Naval Air Station on the same evening that the carrier fleet returned from a long deployment and the planes got to fly home all at once and were piloted by guys who didn’t so much forget about the rules about not flying the low and fast flight path over my house as who simply didn’t have any fucks to give. Only louder.

Some of the dinner conversation I heard from the woman on my left whose name I forgot within a nanosecond of being introduced:

Unknown Stranger: What church do you go to?

Me:  I don’t.

US:  But don’t you need to belong to some sort of community?

Me:  Um. Apparently not.

US:  Um. We go to Sonrise. You should join us tomorrow blah blah pancake breakfast blah blah.

WISIMH:  All this talk about pancake breakfasts makes me feel all stabby, especially as I’m sitting here trying to find the chicken in my chicken salad buried beneath the iceberg lettuce that’s all rusty around the edges.  I feel my peripheral vision blacking out and getting all tunnel-shaped as I concentrate on not picking up the steak knife they served me with my chicken salad for some reason. Maybe, there is a reason. Maybe there is a god.

Later, we went to a live music dinner theater where we were treated to a fresh interpretation of “I Need Your Love” sung by a bald guy in a snow white tux jacket who is a border guard by day. It hasn’t aged well: the song, I mean. The guy himself was at least enjoying himself. The newest song they performed was Brown-Eyed Girl, in which we, the audience, sang the chorous sha la la la blah blah. It was the high point of my evening. Seriously. Which is sad.

The company at my cozy table for 4 in the front row included Linda from Toledo who listed her 10 siblings and then tried to count how many were still alive and who gave up somewhere early on the second hand. Seven, I think. Leaving, let’s see here, four dead fucks I don’t give.

Guy at Table:  That guitarist has an old 1040s Gibson Stratosomething sitting on a stand there. I sure hope he plays it.

Me:  Wow. Want me to create a diversion so you can steal it and sneak out the back door?

Guy:  (Trying to figure out if I’m kidding.) (I’m not.) Well, it could be just a reproduction. I’ll ask him at the intermission.

WISIMH:  Intermission? This is going to go on long enough for me to queue with the other middle-aged women to use the 3-stall head while we pass by the door to the unoccupied men’s room? There’s an unmarked door between the two bathrooms. Perhaps it’s death’s door. Pardon me, my table-friends, while I go knock. Or maybe just ring the bell and run away.

After intermission, the guitarist did an Eric Clapton song accompanying the fifty-something soprano guy in the shiny blue tux jacket and a snappy bowtie that wasn’t tied but just casually left around his neck to tell us all how he was so past the entrenched narrative of 70s cool that he could defy all those conventional rules dude. The guitar solo kicked ass. So, that was nice.

After the show pretend ended, then ended for real, I thanked my host and hostess and said I couldn’t stay for the cake with a rainbow.

Me:  Thanks for a wonderful evening.

Hostess/Birthday Girl:  Aren’t you staying for cake?

Me:  No, I can’t. My refrigerator icemaker is broken and leaking into a bucket and the bucket must be full by now, so I have to go home and empty it.

WISIMH:  Besides, if I stayed, I probably mention that the rainbow has been co-opted by The Gays and possibly have to talk about how I can’t make it to the homophobic pancake breakfast tomorrow.

Me: (To Host) I’ve had a wonderful evening.

WISMH:  This wasn’t it.

Host:  Aren’t you going to stay and give Kirsten your name so you can come back for a free show next month?

WISIMH:  I’d rather go the pancake breakfast tomorrow, after first listening to a sermon about how Edward Snowdon caused Benghazi, and how gay marriage is  destroying the traditional family who goes to diner theater 70s music reviews.

Me:  Can’t now. Refrigerator icemaker excuse. Talk to you later. Thanks again.

WISIMH:  I so seriously don’t have to get out more. And the Gibson was a reproduction, not an original 1940-something like the rest of all y'all.

Adventures in Cat Sitting

TOG:  Well I was having a slow day so I thought how could I add to your stress And here’s what I cam up with OakDale needs an annual physician’s evaluation of me. It means going to Dr. Pham and shaking his hand. Unfortunately this coming Friday is his last day at Kaiser he’s leaving How could he do that to me. Anyway sometime after your family leaves and you’re feeling exuberant plan on a trip to the new doctor and the nurses station for TB test which means another visit in 489 hours to have it read. So how are your feeling and are you prepared for your family

WISIMH:  That’s as funny as your face would be if you took a selfie after I punched it to the consistency of an expired cherry pie. And it’s perfectly consistent with your record-setting streak of coincidentally finding some way to mess up time I try to spend in the company of my family without you around. And you mentioned a fuck I don’t give about your health, so that added to my enjoyment.

After we cleared up fun fact that he was just messing with me and had already arranged with his residence to take him to the new doc next month…

TOG:  ..I know the stress of family is getting to you. You enjoy S’s graduation. And stop being superwoman. Health first!!

Me: … I’m doing fine but more anxious about you and Lily than about family.

TOG is babysitting my old and sick kitty for 4-5 nights while my house is filled with visiting family and pets. She is on prescription food for her failing kidneys and we’ve discussed how he’ll have to sequester his cat’s treats and food and put out only the prescription stuff while he has a cat houseguest. Or, at least I thought I’d made that clear. Then again, I may only have mentioned it once or twice so far.

TOG: I promise to be nice to her.

Me: And not to let her escape.

TOG:  Maybe we all make our own destinies.

Me:  If you lose my kitty, your destiny will be bloody, brutish and brief.

WISIMH: See? I too have a sense of humor. And there is a real danger the cat will manage to get out the door while you’re motoring in or out. And once that happens, although she doesn’t run fast, she plays a little game where you have to capture her when she slows down to let you pick her up. I fear the rules to the game would confound TOG.

Me: Do you have a flea comb? I have to go to Petsmart before I bring Lily tomorrow. Need anything?

TOG: Thanks but no thanks. Don’t need a flea comb because there’s no fleas.

WISIMH:  Objection, non-responsive. To be fair, I did ask two questions – always problematic. I further complicated things by inserting a sentence in between the two questions.

Me:  Not what I asked. I think Lil may have fleas. She has small scabs that often begin a bad breakout. Guess I’ll buy a flea comb and then lend it to you… Do you have dry KD to leave out? I’ll bring enough wet food for both cats.

TOG’s cat is a healthy cat who can eat anything – and does. My cat is a purebred who is dying from kidney failure and can only eat expensive prescription food. While I’ve even stopped giving her the dry KD food, I know TOG’s cat has one of those bins on a bowl so she can munch. When the cats are together I figure dry food will be ok but no non-prescription food can be left out. Seems simple enough.

TOG: I don’t’ have a flea comb but will be sensitive to them. KD dry food I have is mixed with some other stuff. Patti doesn’t need wet. I have lots of KD fish.

WISIMH:  See, here’s the problem. Your cat doesn’t need wet food but you have a lot of it, presumably for my cat. While you cat will have access to non-prescription dry food. And you see nothing wrong with this setup? Having lived with both cats for >10 years you might recall that they will eat out of either bowl and if dry food is available, both cats will eat it.

Me: When Lily is there you can only put out KD food. For both cats….I’ll bring wet and dry KD. For both cats.

TOG:  Only planned on KD food but thought Lily ate only wet.

WISIMH:  You’re right: Lily generally only eats canned food, not the dry stuff. Now, you might mean that you won’t be leaving out any dry food, and will feed both cats from the supply of wet food you have. But you said earlier that your cat doesn’t eat wet food. So you can see my confusion. Actually, frustration. How can such a simple matter become so complicated?

Me:  Will discuss tomorrow.

WISIMH:  It’s not like I don’t know I’m overly sensitive about my cat’s failing health. But I communicate better with the cat than I do with you. I’m on my last nerve trying to get past your lame attempts at humor to a point where you can understand and acknowledge the most seemingly simple matters. And your understanding that I’m under some extra stress about this family gathering, and your concern for my health would be touching if it wasn’t couched in mean jokes and possibly deliberate misunderstandings.