Mornings

Anyone who has ever lived with me for any length of time (or not lived with, just been around any given morning when I have woken up) knows that I am not a Morning Person. At times I am filled with anger, but most of the time I am just extremely confused. This leads to all kinds of interesting scenarios, most of which I don't even remember by one in the afternoon.
Point is, I should really not be doing anything in the morning. Anything whatsoever.
Today I decided to cook myself eggs.

Cooking + Morning = Very Poor Decision Indeed

I took two eggs out of the refrigerator. So far so good. I then cracked the egg on the side of a pan, broke the egg over the sink, dumped the inside down the disposal and put the two broken shell halves in the pan.

Then I looked at it and said out loud, "Something is not right."

After a minute, I figured it out, and then I ate some Cheerios.

Eurotrip

This story is about decisions made for the Wrong Reasons, whether or not that decision is good or bad. This story is one of Rachael's favorites, even though she was not actually anywhere around during the events about to be described. Many of you have actually probably heard this story already, but I was thinking about it recently for some reason so now I'm going to share it again.

**Names have been changed to protect the Totally Insane.

As we all know, I spent a lot of time living in Europe during what many may call my longest lapse of judgment to date. One of the nice things about living in Europe though was all the vacation France gives you combined with the fact that Europe is like the size of Pennsylvania which makes it easy to take awesome vacations. As I mentioned months ago, one of these vacations was in Iceland. I know I promised to tell that story eventually and I never have, but this is STILL not the story about vacation in Iceland.

This is a story about my friend **Mariana** and how her complete insanity led her to learn English. Also some California surfers.

**Mariana** one of my dearest, most beloved, most completely craziest friends is from a Latin American country and lived with me in our little boarding house in Moissac. Her native language is Spanish, mine is English. My Spanish isn't fluent, and she spoke absolutely no English, so our language together has always been French.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION is that **Mariana** explained to me on the very first day we met how she hated the United States. She called us the Imperialist Capitalist Materialist Enemy Nation of Evil, and told me how she would never, EVER learn English, the hateful language of the Imperialist Capitalist Materialist Enemy.

We went on several trips together during our time there, but this one was easily the most...action packed. Between Christmas and New Year's we went from Moissac to Toulouse to Paris to Barcelona to Madrid to Lisbon to Madrid to Paris and back home.
Many, many things happened on this trip, many crazy adventures were had, many trains and planes were nearly missed and I did in fact actually fall asleep inside my own suitcase between 6 and 6:30 in the morning on New Year's Day. Many stories were made in this one week.

But THIS story, this story is only about one particular night in Lisbon, and the rest is just backdrop. We are somewhat after Christmas but still just before New Year's Eve. It is our first day in Lisbon and we are SO TIRED.


It was Saturday night and our hostel was just blocks away from Barrio Alto, THE party district in Lisbon, possibly Portugal, possibly the world as far as I'm concerned. I've certainly never been anywhere that comes close to matching it. But we made a joint decision that we were going to wash up, find a nice dinner, and go straight to bed at 9:00 p.m. Otherwise we could very well die. When we arrived at the hostel and found our 6 person room, **Mariana** growled from the doorway.
"BOY clothes, Danielle. There are BOYS here. I hate BOYS. Boys are LOUD and STUPID and...and...and why do there have to be BOYS."
"It'll be okay, maybe they won't even come back tonight, it's Saturday. I'm sure they'll be out in Barrio Alto and we'll never even notice them. I'm going to use the bathroom, I'll be right back and we'll go get dinner."
"grumblegrumblegrumble," collapse on bed, "grumblegrumblegrumble."
I swear, I was in the bathroom for no more than five or six minutes. No way it was more. But when I came back to the room to get **Mariana**, she was unrecognizable. She was sitting on the bed cross-legged, staring blankly towards the doorway with a smile. When I walked into the room, she emitted a siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh and said, "Danielle, we are absolutely going out tonight."
Needless to say, I was VERY confused. "What? Out? Is that a joke? What for?"
Instead of a straight answer, all I got was another sigh and the words, "For that..."
I turned to see where she was staring and nearly smacked into one of the most well built, attractive boys I had seen in person.

I know exactly how well muscled he was because he was wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.

"Uuuuuh...hi...hello..." I said. I had no idea where he was from or what language he spoke.
"Hey! I hear you girls are coming out with us tonight," he said in American English.
"Oh...did you? How did you hear that?"
"Your friend and I were talking."
I cannot explain this part to you, I cannot at all explain how this boy and **Mariana** talked at all since he spoke no Spanish and she spoke no English. It is a lesson to us all, my friends, and the lesson is this: forget love, it is Lust that Conquers All.
We chatted for another moment or two, and then I asked, "Are you by yourself or with friends?"
"I'm here with two friends, we're on a surfing trip."
It was like we were in a movie and they were cued. Two more equally shaped boys wearing towels stepped into the doorway.
There was an audible strangled sigh from the bed behind me. I can't imagine the boys didn't hear it, but they must have chosen to politely ignore it.
Long story short, I talked with them briefly about going out plans and told them we'd meet them back in our room after we were done with dinner. I had to drag **Mariana** from the room.
"No! Danielle! I don't need dinner! We can't leave them alone! What if they disappear? What if they leave without us? How can you eat at a time like this?"
Our compromise was that we went into the first restaurant she saw, not far from the hostel, which meant that on our one night out in Portugal we had some kind of Asian food.
The things we do for overpowering lust.
While we waited for our food, the little anti-Imperialist Capitalist Materialist who swore she would never learn the terrible language of the Enemy said to me, "QUICK TEACH ME ENGLISH! ALL OF IT! RIGHT NOW!"
She did eventually concede that it was not feasible for me to teach her the entire English language over dinner and still not spend more than 20 minutes away from our surfers. In Madrid, over the course of another ridiculous story, she had already picked up "I am so hot for you, baby," and "I love you man." She spent a few minutes picking the perfect third sentence to learn in English.

Which was this: "I would like to take a picture of you, but without the t-shirt."

"What are you going to say when this poor guy asks WHY you are asking to take a picture of him half naked?"

Her answer was simple, and we learned the very short sentence, "Because it is necessary."

We ate dinner quickly, headed back, and much to **Mariana**'s happiness, the Americans had waited for us. We did actually have an awesome night out, and I've never been anywhere quite like Barrio Alto ever again. Much of the night was spent with **Mariana** spouting French and saying, "Translate that Danielle!" and smiling flirtatiously at the American of her choice.
The downside of partying with Americans is that while we were used to the European system of start the party at 2 a.m. and finish sometime after dawn, these little American boys were done with the party by 3, just when we were getting started. We all ended up going back to the hostel, where I went straight to my suitcase to get my pajamas and GO TO BED, when all of a sudden I heard a heavily accented, sultry voice behind me say, "Can I take a picture of you without t-shirt?"
In the time it took for her to finish the sentence, and before I had even turned around, the surfer this was directed at had ALREADY ripped off his shirt. **Mariana** tossed me her camera as he picked her up. I have NEVER BEEN FORGIVEN for messing around with the camera, unsure of how to turn it on, and only getting a picture with his head cut off, completely tilted, of her falling out of his arms.
But his abs are nicely centered in the picture, and this is the only reason I was not murdered in Lisbon in December of 2007.

We slept, we left the hostel the next morning, and continued on with our vacation and then with our lives. **Mariana** began punching me repeatedly in the arm any time we were anywhere and heard American accents ("THEY COULD BE FROM CALIFORNIA DANIELLE"). She started talking about visiting the Capitalist Imperialist Materialist Enemy nation of America ("Do you live near California, Danielle? Why not? Would you consider moving?")
The following year **Mariana** began classes at the University and made the decision to study English. No more was it ever again called the language of the enemy. It was now the language of seducing unsuspecting young men from California.

Fin

That entire story is true. Un-exaggerated, un-embellished. Some people, however, on hearing the end of the story will say to me, "Danielle, there's no way that's the whole story. Three guys like that and you let **Mariana** have all the fun? There's more to this." Sometimes I'll deny it.

Of course, when I do, I'm lying.

Temping

The very first thing Allie and I did to prepare for our new lives in D.C. was to sign on with a temp agency. This felt very much like a Great Decision. We went through the interview process, passed all the computer literacy tests, signed official looking documents, and were sent away with the promise of numerous opportunities that were soon to rain down on us.
The reason I left Pittsburgh at the moment I did was because I had been told there was a temp job for me that I needed to be ready to start on the 15th of February. I told my boss no, there was no way I could stay an extra week at my job because I had this new and exciting opportunity waiting for me in D.C. I hadn't been given all the details on the job, like what time I was needed in the morning, or what building or what company I was going to be working in. So every day for four days before the start date I called the temp agency repeatedly leaving more and more messages asking for any of the necessary information.
I never received a single response, Tuesday came and went. Finally, Wednesday, someone answered my phone call and told me haha, oops! That fell through. We'll find you something else.
Needless to say, I was Very Annoyed.
I called the temp agency every day for two weeks, rarely getting through to anyone, often leaving messages, never getting called back. I despaired.
One fine Tuesday, I was asleep in my bed, the first day since moving I did not set an alarm. At 9:40 a.m., I was awakened by my phone. I managed to answer it, only knocking everything around it off the shelf first.
The woman on the other end was from, miracle of miracles, the temp agency.
"We want you to be downtown at their office at 10:30 this morning. You'll be working there the rest of the week, answering phones, sitting at the front desk, getting coffee, whatever needs done. You need to be professionally dressed, so a suit is all right. Okay? The building is a few blocks from Dupont Circle, call us if you get lost!"
I got off the phone at 9:45. I had FORTY FIVE MINUTES to get up, showered, dressed, fed, to the metro, and from the metro to wherever this building was without using a car and going from the suburbs in Maryland to the middle of the District.
Impossible, you say.
That is what a sane person would say, but I wanted MONEY. Luckily, one block from my house there is a bus that comes to take people like me to the metro stop at Friendship Heights. And I had a handydandy schedule pamphlet on the floor next to bed. Next bus, 10:03.
Now, I do not own a suit. But, I was dressed reasonably professionally if not at all awake and up at the bus stop by 9:59.
I am amazing.
Took the bus, ran into the metro, ran out of the metro, immediately got lost, talked to several helpful strangers, and was up on floor 6 of the office building at 10:36, which is late, but come on guys. That is pretty awesome.
I spent the next three hours learning about getting people coffee ("Be VERY attentive when you take coffee orders, they are VERY particular, you must not mess this up"), washing dishes (their dishwasher was broken and for some reason people in this office were incapable of washing their own cups during this difficult time?), getting the lunch order from down the street (Apparently their meals were supposed to come with chips. Never having ordered from this place before, I did not know. People get really cranky without their chips, but seriously, you don't need all those terribly unhealthy things anyway get over it), and falling madly in love with the guy showing me around the office.
It was a very busy time.
After rushing around and trying to learn things and keep things straight and quickly realizing that the last thing I ever want to do in my life is ever have to work in a corporate office again, I was asked by the woman who had ordered the temp to step into her office.
"So, we don't need you after all, as it turns out. Ha! Oops! What an oversight. Just go home."
"...go home for the day? Or go home and not come back at all this week even though I'm supposed to be working here all week?"
"Not sure...maybe, maybe not, we'll see, we'll call you, you know, if we feel like it."
And with that I was kicked out. After three hours of employment.
I spent almost as much on the bus and the metro and lunch in the city as I made.
No temp jobs since then, no one responded to my calls or messages at the agency that day, the next day, or the day after.
I have no faith in this system.

Health Insurance

The entire Health Insurance field in the United States is one giant Poor Decision as far as I am concerned. In France, I wasn't even a citizen, and yet any time I felt like it I could wander into any doctor in the country for $25, and they would see and treat me. Medications cost 80% less than in the U.S. Everything was simple and easy and wonderful. What is the United States DOING?

When I came back from France, I began paying, out of pocket, for my own individual health insurance plan. I started at the fabulous price of $213.35. Why that number? Who knows. Maybe not even the insurance company. I'm beginning to feel that they know precious little. Of course, the fact that I needed to buy my own insurance policy in the first place suggests that I did not have a full time job which would have covered my insurance. Not having a full time job, logically I did not have the money to pay for my health coverage. But America does not care! So I scraped it together, I managed, I bought fewer cookies and wore my shoes until they literally came apart in the streets. Now, I needed the insurance in the first place because I have a thyroid condition and need to get blood tests done, take pills, occasionally check in with a doctor. The beauty of the American health system, however, meant that despite sending checks for everything I had in my bank account monthly to Blue Cross Blue Shield I STILL COULD NOT TAKE CARE OF MY HEALTH ISSUES because of that beautiful phrase, "pre-existing conditions."
I waited. I waited 10 months, and finally, FINALLY I was allowed to go keep myself from wasting away. It all barely seemed worth it. THEN, when I was finally just managing to save a tiny bit of money for other things, like gas, car insurance, food, the co-pays for actually SEEING the doctor, Blue Cross Blue Shield sent me a letter courteously explaining how they had raised my monthly payments to $350, and nahnahnahnah THERE WAS NOTHING THAT COULD BE DONE ABOUT IT!
WHAT?
There was nothing for it, I NEED health insurance, blood work is expensive, and my parents kept explaining to me how if my appendix burst or a bus hit me, I'd better hope it killed me outright because I'd spend the rest of my life and my children's lives paying off my debts from the homeless shelter. I wrote checks every month, subtly stained with tears.
Then I decided to make this move to D.C. Among ten million other things that need to be done, of course I needed to change my health insurance plan, because IT ONLY WORKS IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA.
????
What kind of country do we LIVE in? This is madness. Alas, a madness I cannot change. So I did the adult, reasonable thing to do, and called my provider and asked if I could transfer my coverage to Maryland's CareFirst. After spending the better part of an afternoon standing int he hallway at the library on hold, a nice employee answered the phone and told me she had no idea, the only people who could tell me if such a transfer was possible was Maryland's CareFirst. She gave me the number. I called. I spent the better part of the evening on hold until a nice employee answered and told me no one at CareFirst could tell me this, I needed to talk to my current provider and ask them.
I went to sleep.
In the morning I called my provider and told them what CareFirst had said. The nice employee who answered told me that they were wrong, and I needed to call Maryland again and demand an answer.
SO I CALLED CAREFIRST AGAIN.
They told me THEY COULD NOT TELL ME ANYTHING so I did the adult, reasonable thing to do, which was to cry and make wild accusatory statements. This nice employee immediately transferred me to their sales department where someone explained to me the plans available to me if I were to simply cancel my current plan and get a new one. These were cheaper! Slightly. Yay! They sounded awesome! She emailed me further information and I was all set to just choose one just based on the few facts she'd told me without actually reading anything. Luckily my father is still on top of these things, since he knows I am rarely either adult or reasonable, and informed me that basically both of these plans covered NOTHING beyond situations called things like Danielle Gets Hit By A Meteor.
I decided to take a few days of rest from the process and in the meantime developed what I fear is strep throat. I decided to employ the plan I usually employ, which is Ignore It And It Will Go Away Like Magic. This plan has been employed at least 14,000 times by me during my lifetime, for all kinds of things, and has never, not once, ever, never ever, worked. Still, it was the course of action I decided to take about a week ago. My throat feels like tiny parasites are sharpening knives on it, but I can still wander around and function mostly, so ignoring seemed like the best plan. A week gone by though, and my paranoia is kicking in, because instead of any better at all, it is growing steadily worse, and the internet tells me I can get things like Scarlet Fever and Death unless I get myself some antibiotics. My friend Dr. Quyen, Medicine Woman though tells me this is unlikely, which is more than a little comforting. Still, pain. Not good.
Today I began looking for a Med Express type place, and decided on Righttime Medical Center, conveniently located up Rockville Pike. I called and asked if they took my insurance, even if it's Out of State.
"Of course! No problem!"
"Are you SURE?"
"Oh yes, quite sure, Blue Cross Blue Shield? Yes, yes, come right on in."
"Well...that is good. Sweet, awesome, I'll make an appointment."
"Great! Just make sure that you have a PPO instead of an HMO."
"What now?"
"PPO. We won't take your insurance if it's not a PPO."
"...but you said you'd take out of state Blue Cross Blue Shield."
"Of course! We do! But only if it's PPO."
"How do I tell THAT?"
"It's written on your card." It was not written anywhere on my card. "Then you need to call them and ask."
I called Blue Cross Blue Shield Keystone Health Plan West. I spent 20 minutes on hold. Within one minute the girl at Blue Cross Blue Shield said, "HMO."

Well, now what America? Your poor voting decisions over the past 200 years have made it so it may in fact be cheaper for me to fly to France to get a strep test done than drive five minutes up Rockville Pike.

Gadgets

My grandmother does not have the internet. She does not have a computer. She does not use a cell phone. She has a cell phone, but it's never been on and the one time she had it on by accident and it rang, she didn't know how to answer it. She calls all modern technology "gadgets." Laptop, phone, Blackberry, iPad...all gadgets. So when my grandmother came to me and said, "Danielle, I'm thinking of getting one of those gadgets," I wasn't completely sure what she meant.
"A computer?"
"No."
"A camera?"
"No."
"A new television?"
"No! A gadget, you know of those..." She started stabbing the air with her finger.
"A...light saber?"
"No no no no no no! They have buttons, you look things up..."
"A Blackberry?"
"Yes, like that, but not a Blackberry. I want an Android."
I could not for the life of me figure out what my grandmother, who refuses to use things like computers and cell phones, could possibly want with a Droid. As it turns out, what she wants is to have the internet with her at all times so that when she is at lunch or book club meetings with her friends and gets into an argument, she can PROVE HERSELF CORRECT with the power of the internet.

I let her choose a day on which we could go together to "the gadget store," and off we went. I expected to end up at a Verizon store, but instead we ended up at more or less the equivalent of RadioShack. I began to say to my grandmother, "Perhaps Verizon would be more..." to which I only got, "Quiet, Danielle."
Once in the gadget store, the employees informed my grandmother that they did not carry Androids or Blackberries or any of those things. The closest thing they had to what my grandmother wanted was an iPad but it was "TOO BIG!" to fit in her purse. The gadget store employees were all declared wildly incompetent, and we headed off to Verizon.
At Verizon, we ran into a new problem.
"What do you MEAN the Android is a phone? I don't want a phone. I want an internet."
Eventually the salesperson and I were able to convince my grandmother that there was nothing the salesperson could personally do about making the Android not a phone anymore, and after a lot of back and forth and general insanity we settled on a Galaxy Tablet which is actually quite neat.
Then the salesperson, instead of GETTING OUT QUICKLY, asked the terrible question, "Tell me about the service you use for your landline. How much are you paying? What? That much? Let me tell you about how you can save a lot of money!"
You all know about me and my penchant for buying absolutely anything and everything salespeople suggest I buy. Well guys, turns out I got it through genetics. My grandmother and I together in that store were the most pathetic victims the world has ever seen. We walked out of that store an hour and a half later with a Galaxy Tablet, a flashy new box to plug into the landline to make all the phones run through some wireless system, and a new plan for my grandmother's barely touched cell phone.
Before heading out, the salesperson asked for my grandmother's email address.
"I am NOT giving you my email address! That's how I get all of these emails about Viagra! And girls in Russia! And PENIS englargements. Do I look like I need a penis enlargement? I do not have a PENIS!"
The salesperson actually literally did a headdesk and needed to take a moment to himself before he stopped laughing to hard to ring her up.
The next day, every phone in my grandmother's house was knocked out. She called in Verizon to fix it. The following day, every phone in my grandmother's house plus her WebTV was knocked out.
My grandmother's phones and WebTV have been out for four days now, she's run over the minutes on her new cell phone plan, and she's angsty over not checking her email for a week.

On the bright side, she now knows how to answer her cell phone when it rings.

Starting Over

What makes a person quit their job, pack their things, and leave the life they've built behind?

Her name is Allie. She is rather small, but she is very persuasive.

I went to Israel because I was feeling restless and stuck and I thought traveling for ten days in far parts of the world would help make the feelings go away. While the trip was great, it definitely backfired because I came home feeling more restless and upset than I did before I left.
Allie and I met in Israel, and discussed how we both wanted to move to D.C. I didn't take her seriously though, because most people I meet are total flakes and don't mean most of what they say. Somehow though, things went from our hypothetical jobs and apartment and life in D.C. and the fun artwork we would hang on our theoretical walls to driving out to interview with a temp agency to leaving our respective houses and moving in with my grandmother.

We have a wonderful little domestic situation going on. She gets up early for work at her internship and I get up to turn off the alarm and lock the door behind her before going to make breakfast and starting my day like an unemployed little housewife. My very first day I immediately went to the library for the internet (no internet at Grandma's...) and began a lengthy conversation with the library Manager. She wants me to help out around the library! There is a hiring freeze, so she cannot hire me :( but in the meantime she wants my help as a volunteer on their newest project, making the library more appealing to young people and finding grant money. Also facilitating book discussions for children and teens! I am quite excited over it.

Each day I go to the library and apply to at least two jobs, eat a sandwich, and then meet Allie for Adventures Downtown. So far we have had a Trivia Night, a Networking Night, a Shabbat Dinner, a Night Out in Adams Morgan, and watched part of a fabulous movie about Alyssa Milano's imaginary friend. We may be losing hope of ever finding employment ever, but there's not too much time to spend lamenting over it.

It's all very exciting.

Life Changing Decisions

I think it's time I re-took control of this blog. I don't know what Rachael is going to be doing, perhaps she will find the strength to post at the some point. But in the meantime, we will no longer wait for her.
I got far behind in posts myself because for awhile there, my life was working out okay. I had a job I adored, I was making new friends, developing new hobbies, traveling, even finding time to go out with new wonderful gentlemen callers. I was making Good Decisions. Yes, it was all coming together.

And then on Wednesday of last week I went in to work, told my boss I was quitting my job and leaving the city. I packed everything in four suitcases and drove away a few days later. Any of my friends not on Facebook don't even know that I've moved away. I should probably call them.

Yeah. That happened.

Bad decision? Time will tell. It was certainly rash, poorly thought out, and probably somewhat stupid.

In any case, I am going to begin to use this blog to track this decision, write about the life of the lonely, the unemployed, and the impoverished. At least for a little while. And time will tell whether or not this decision was a Poor one.