You Think You Know Someone

My maternal grandmother is 102.5 years old. She is feisty, funny, and sometimes aggravating as hell. She is still quite mentally sharp, and lives in a retirement complex, where she cares for herself without much assistance. I have adored her all my life, but in November she really broke my heart.

Grammy has quite a bit of money invested in the stock market. This is money she has long planned to bequeath to her heirs, my mother and uncle. She sees no reason to go ahead and make any gifts before her death, even though it would mean that Mom and Uncle could avoid paying much of their inheritance in taxes. If Grammy could control that money from beyond the grave, she would. This is, by far, her most aggravating trait.

In the months leading up to the election, Grammy had assured me that she would not be voting for Trump. She wanted Bernie, and when he didn’t get the nomination, she become one of the Hillary-haters, and said she wouldn’t vote at all, as did my stepfather, who is also now on my shit list. My uncle started talking to Grammy about how under Trump her investments would increase, and that was all it took.

What hurts about this for me is that Grammy is well aware of the struggles my family experiences, due to my daughter’s disability, and her inability to work as a result. Daughter is now 22 years old, and though we are aware that she only has until age 26 on our insurance plan, we were looking toward her being able to receive Medicaid benefits at that time.That plan may now be out the window.

I saw Grammy yesterday when my family visited my Mom’s new rental home. She asked me what I thought of the new healthcare plan being proposed by the republicans. I told her that I believe it will hurt my family. She countered by saying that they are keeping two key provisions; coverage to age 26, and no preexisting conditions protection. I asked her what happens when my daughter ages out of our insurance coverage, and there’s no Medicaid because the funding to states has been slashed. She didn’t have an answer, but at least the stock market is doing well, and her investments are growing.

This is a woman who has seen my daughter have seizures, was at the hospital with us when we wondered if our little girl would live through the night, helped us scrounge up items for a huge garage sale, so we could earn the money to pay for a Vagus Nerve Stimulator implant, and gives my daughter $20-40 every time we see her, just because. She knows we are a single income family, with medical bills up the wazoo, and a fear of what the future holds for our child. But she voted Trump, in the hope of further enriching herself, even though it’s at the expense of our child, and others like her.

My stepfather also said he wasn’t voting, because he didn’t think Trump was a good idea, but in the end bought into the “God, guns, and country” bullshit. The only saving grace here is that we live in a very blue state, and their votes didn’t make much difference in the end. Still, it feels like such a betrayal, by two people who tell me they love me, ask worried questions about my daughter, say all the right things to my face, and then made a choice in leadership that can only hurt us.

This isn’t drama. This is my daughter’s life. Without insurance coverage, she will not be able to access the level of care necessary to keep her healthy. We own our home, though we have a couple of mortgages on it. Foreclosure and eviction take several months, so I supposes that’s one plan. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

 

 

 

There’s Just No Prepping For This

GiR of Invader Zim

Not so long ago, and in this very galaxy, I silently mocked the people who talked about needing more firepower in order to protect themselves, in the event the government ever turned on its citizens. I’m not laughing anymore. I found myself wondering what we’d do if soldiers showed up at our door, and demanded we come with them. In reality, even though we do have a couple of weapons for home defense/target shooting, and I know how to use them, we wouldn’t stand a chance. The military has the really good stuff; airplanes, bombs, tanks, and vast numbers of people, armed to the teeth, and trained to follow orders without question.

I believe in a minimum level of emergency preparedness. We live in a seismically overdue region, and most folks expect us to experience The Big One (a magnitude 8-9 earthquake) any minute now. We’re encouraged to stock up on water, canned goods, medications, and first aid supplies, and have them ready to go in a bug-out kit. My family isn’t as prepared as we might be, but we’ve got the basics. We don’t have the family size underground bunker, or 5 years worth of food and water that I’ve seen on the prepper reality shows, but I also believed we’d be okay in the event of a natural disaster. I never really believed our own government could be the risk for which we may need to prepare.

There’s no bug-out plan for a white nationalist coup. Soon, even our closest neighbors will be wary of allowing US citizens to visit their countries. In our desperation, we may become the illegal immigrants who come for a vacation, and then stay forever, seeking asylum from our lunatic, despotic leader. I hope we get a kinder welcome than we’ve historically shown refugees in this country.

I have this fear, and yet I still can’t keep my snarky mouth shut, and can’t help but troll the president on Twitter when he says something asinine, which is just about every day. So now I keep one eye on the front window, and hope I don’t see men in black roll up in front of my house. If I were smart, I’d just hole up with my family, keep stocking up on emergency supplies, keep the passports up to date, and make sure the car’s gas tank is always full. It’s a 7 hour drive to the Canadian border. I’ll bet we could do it in 5.

 

Groundhog Day

Even in my own head I sound like a broken record. It happens to be Groundhog Day, but every day lately feels like the movie; I wake up, see the headlines, read the reactions, and groan or sigh over whatever our Cheeto in Chief has done. That is, unless it’s a day like today, when I’m so stunned that I just sort of freeze, while attempting to process what I’m seeing or hearing.

Today happens to be the National Prayer Breakfast. Now, this is normally something I might notice, peripherally, but not really take an interest in, and can’t remember even hearing anything interesting about one of these in the last 8 years. Well, wouldn’t you just know that this event was trending at the top of all my feeds, due to the words and actions of our current president. Once again, he has taken what should have been a quiet, introspective event, and turned it into a narcissistic attention grab

While we’re all laughing at his idiocy, and mocking Trump for being a self-centered ass, I have to wonder what’s going on back at the White House, where I envision Steve Bannon cackling and wringing his hands over a boiling cauldron filled with children’s souls. Could it be that Trump is aware of how ridiculous he is, and uses that to engineer situations that will create a distracting buzz? Or, is it that he really is that obtuse, and only serving as a foil for the puppet-master Bannon? Either way, each day looks more bleak.

Just this morning, I learned that Trump threatened to send our army to Mexico, and hung up on Australia’s prime minister. In the meantime, I’m still reading about the people who are suffering as a result of the immigration ban, and have friends who are counseling one another to create alternate/clean versions of their social media accounts, in case they get stopped at a border crossing, and are asked to show those things to a customs official. Yeah, it’s that bad now.

Worst of all, each day I wonder if this will be the day that the ACA is repealed, and we have to scramble to get our daughter medical coverage. At age 22, she would no longer be covered on our employer’s plan, and since she has a pre-existing condition, would have to be on our state’s Medicaid program, which takes time to get going. I am grateful to live in a blue state, where we take seriously the care and well-being of our residents, but it still costs a lot of money, and without federal funding, that is a challenge.

So, the word of the day is gobsmacked. I’m glad that I can still be surprised, and haven’t yet begun to expect the worst each day. The way things are going, though, I expect it won’t be long before I wake up and assume that this could be the day we lose it all, both as a country, and as a family. I have a lot to lose, and not far to fall. Most of us are in this boat, but some of us can’t see it, and they’re the ones that will sink us.

What Fresh Hell

Each day since January 20th I’ve awoken in the morning, and wondered what our esteemed orange sociopath has been up to since I went to bed the night before. What a way to start the day. Each day I log into Twitter and Facebook, and start scrolling through to see what I missed. Each day there is something that actually makes me gasp, and my heart race, and my hope for the future shrivel a little bit more.

Today’s horror is that people who were already vetted for travel to the US, many with green cards, who had simply been traveling on business or to visit family, have been detained on entry into the US. There were literally people who were already in the air at the time that Trump signed the exclusion order. People who live and work in the US, and have family and children here. They had made the journey, landed at the destination airport, handed over their paperwork, and were then taken into detention and told they’d be returned to their country of origin.

What the actual fuck? I am literally sick to my stomach. This is not my America. This is not the country I was raised to believe was the great melting pot of democracy and welcome to the world. Where anyone, from anywhere, could make a life for themselves, and achieve their dreams. Every day since Jan. 20, Mr. Trump has worked to undo everything that’s been accomplished since the founding fathers created this republic.

Twitler and his puppet-masters say they’re so concerned about “radical Islamic terrorists,” and yet they don’t seem to realize that by their very actions, they are contributing to the potential radicalization of those people already in the country. They are alienating people who had believed they had a future here, an opportunity to better their lives, and the lives of their families. They had done all the right things, and suddenly have had the rug pulled out from under them. If they can’t trust our government to keep its word to them, then why should they keep their word to us? We are creating the very problem we wish to eradicate. It doesn’t even make good nonsense.

I’m not even going to get into the hypocrisy of not excluding people immigrating from countries in which The Donald has business interests. That’s a rant for another day. Today I’m more concerned with the humanitarian crisis to which we are now contributing, and the isolation, fear and anger that will radicalize the very people we should be attempting to protect. I used to think we were better than this. Now I can see that we are not, and it not only pisses me off, it makes me profoundly sad. This is not my America, and Trump is not my president.

#resist