First Cup of Coffee - July 9, 2019

Today's podcast is all about career author Real Life - my wranglings with a dead car battery, health insurance, and Waste Management not caring about recycling service. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. I swear it just goes right to the bloodstream with all that yummy goodness. Today is Tuesday, July 9th. Beautiful summer morning here in Santa Fe. I'm out in my garden. I recall it was this time of year a couple of years ago that I we were negotiating the sale of what became Orchid Throne in that trilogy. We had a call with one of the editors. And I was out here in the garden weeding as we talked. Snipping and weeding. I don't like to sit still when I talk on the phone because my mom is forever complaining. Actually, I don't think she complains, she just thinks it's funny. Though I really do feel like I come by this honestly, she's the one who uh was weeping out the little Joya Bomb landmines. Not fully left by my unwelcome neighbor. She is dedicated. I told you guys the other day she left me a dead bird who was kind of desiccated. Clearly been in her nest for some time. I was trying to decide if it was a uh warning, you know, kind of like the godfather leaving the horse's head in the bed. This could be, oh yeah. I'm bigger. I'm a lot bigger pack rat. Anyway, I do think I come by it honestly. My mom was never much for sitting still. And she was forever in the days before you could pause the movie. She was always getting up to like go do the dishes or attend to some chore, and she would always say, No, don't worry about me. Or even excuse me. A little sneezy this morning. My allergies are tweaking. Probably the combination of sunshine, getting the heat and the rain, everything's really starting to bloom now. The garden's pretty. Even in the days when we could pause, which was a huge thing, you know, for those of you who were not alive there, or for then, or for those of you who were and remember it, um, you know, remember the whole thing about, you know, like movies on tape, and you could actually re-watch a movie anytime you wanted to. You didn't have to wait for it to like turn up on some network channel or at some, you know, there were those movie theaters that only played like older movies, and you could kind of hope that they would cycle through to this movie you wanted to see again. Kids these days don't know how easy they have it. It was such a revolution when we could watch things on tape and then on DVD, you know, and now with the streaming, it's so much it's just amazing. But we have at our fingertips now. But anyway, when even when we could pause, my mom would always say, No, no, don't pause it. I'm just going to go do this. And then she'd be off screwing around in the kitchen for a long time. So she is not one to sit still for long either. So I didn't mention before, but on let's see, what day was it? Friday? Yeah, Friday. I tried to start the jag and it wouldn't start. And David said that the battery was just completely shot. Which is weird, because my mechanic, who I love and trust and think is a god, uh, he replaced this battery for me. I think it was last fall. Because I mean, I could maybe even find it in the podcast, but I don't know if I tagged it correctly. You know, that was when we had this whole conversation about how I drive like an a little old lady, that apparently I do the equivalent of going to church in the grocery store, and that's it. You know, I go to yoga and my manicure and my hair appointments. Hmm, not quite so wholesome as the church in the grocery store. But all of these chips, he said, anytime that I start my car and drive it less than 20 minutes, it drains the battery instead of building it up again. So I was supposed to be better, and for a while I was better, and lately I haven't been, you know, like he said, even if I, which was amazing to me, even if I uh leave the car running in the driveway for, you know, up to to make that 20-minute mark, he says, just that's better than putting it in the garage and turning it off. So, you know, I remembered for a long time, but I don't think it's even, you know, maybe it was last spring. Uh it was definitely since the podcast because I know I was talking about it. So that's a year, right? Anyway, the battery was totally toast. And I called yesterday morning and turns out he was on vacation, but the gal who kind of runs the shop said, Well, just she said she had another one and just to bring in the old one and she'd swap it out for me. It was kind of funny because she said, Well, I guess you'll have to have the car towed here so we can do it. And I said, Oh no, uh, David can take it out and put it in for me. She said, Really? I'm like, Yeah. Then I mean, is that that unusual? So David took my battery out for me yesterday afternoon, and it was kind of a pain. Um, it involves much complaining about wedging himself into small spaces. And in the jag, the battery is in the boot, it's in the back. So it and it's, you know, very compactly inserted in there, so it is kind of a pain. So I took the old battery in and got a new one, and David put it in for me this morning, and my car started up. Yay! So that's a picture of him working on it for me. I wanted to get one where he was like all the way in the boot, but he had already gotten out by the time I grabbed my phone, and I wasn't gonna ask him to do it again. Um but clearly there is something wrong with my electrical system. Um, because it there's no way that battery should have fried that fast, no matter how much of a little old lady I am. Uh so that's that's a bit worrisome. The the JAG is a 96. It's a 96 XJS. And you know, that's it's it's the year that they converted over to Ford manufacture, so the wiring isn't as bad as the old Jags. I did have an 88 XJS before this that um died in an engine fire. It's wiring blew up. I think it was partly the fault of a mechanic in Wyoming who worked on it and screwed it up, used the wrong hose clamps on it. Still mad about that. Um I try to let go of these things, I really do. But, you know, jags have notoriously bad wiring. Um, you know, there's there's a joke because it's um Lucas Wiring did the jag wiring for a very, very long time. And there was the joke that do you know why it's so hot in hell? Because Lucas Wiring did the air conditioning. So the newer jags, like 96 on, are much better than that, but clearly there's something wonky. And there always has been with this car because I bought it from the guy who bought it new, and he had actually had a little dial installed to disconnect the battery. And it's something I have to remember to do when we go on vacation. Because if I let the car sit for a week or two, it will, the battery will go dead, the car drains it down. And he had had that installed to stop it from doing that. So, you know, clearly something is draining the battery, and now I think it's accelerated in old age, as all ailments do, right? So for now we have a fresh battery, and I have an oil, and it was free because you know it was like 24-month warranty, but I'm not sure what uh my mechanic's going to want to do about it. I have an oil change due in August, so when we get back from Ireland, during which time I will un unscrew that fountain. I will disconnect the battery with that handy dial that I need to remember to use. And um we'll see what he thinks. It might just require babying. I should, you know, it's you get to a point of vanishing returns with a car that age, unless you really want to invest in it. It's a beautiful car though, so I hate to David keeps saying, Oh, we need to get you a new car, a more reliable car, and it's like, but I love my I love my convertible. I don't want another car. But we shall see. We shall see. I'm at this point I'm getting through the travel. I'm getting through July and August. I'm seeing what's happening with the new shiny. Oh, I started to say that before that it was two years ago that we were uh negotiating the sale of Orchid Throne and talking to that editor on the phone, who we did not end up selling it to. We ended up selling it to someone else. But the garden looks much the same as it did then, and I'm hoping that Sarah might want to go out on submission with New Shiny soon. We'll see. We're we're sort of in dicey time zone. Uh everyone in New York pretty much leaves in August. But if we can get it out in the next week or so, I don't know, maybe. I did get it mostly finished yesterday. I need to revise about 20 more pages and then work on the synopsis. I could have maybe finished yesterday, but I needed to deal with that battery. I got kind of a late start yesterday, and I wanted uh to go over it again with a fresh brain today. So it won't take much today, and then I can work on a few other things. I have some stuff to do for read a romance month. I'm going to be uh talking about magic, magic in books, something like that. Hosting the Facebook page on August 7th, I believe, and I need to write up some things for that. I need to go over this thing for Dorinda and send that in. Um and I need to do some Ireland trip planning since it seems we're really gonna do this. Amazingly enough. I've David had me put, we have we finally figured out how to sync our Google calendars, and so I've put in all of the times that I need him to take me to the airport, and he apparently looked at it closely because last night he's like, Is this really your schedule? I was like, Yeah, why? I he's like, You're just gonna be home for my birthday, and then you leave again, and I said, Yeah, you know, and and my friend Megan Mullery thought that I should have gone direct from San Diego to New York. And I maybe could have, uh, but I did check the plane fares and everything, and it once it when I figured for the extra hotel nights, it didn't save me any money. In fact, it would have cost me more money because hotels in both places are so expensive. And and I didn't want to have to pack for both Comic Con and RWA. And I wanted to be home for David's birthday. I'm too often not home for his birthday because it often falls during uh RWA, and this is his 60th, so that's a big deal. Also, we're gonna go to he wanted to go to the Kansas concert at Isletta, and we're gonna do that. It's birthday E Saturday night. I am having to splice here because I was touched the phone and stopped the recording. Shouldn't do that. It would probably be better if I just never touched it all, right? So anyway, I'm I think it's gonna be fine. I'm the travel doesn't seem so bad if I'm not worrying about trying to write at the same time. That's uh that's the biggest source of stress. And I'm looking forward to all the people that I get to spend time with. So it's gonna be a nice round of friends and new people and family and all of that. And I really am going to try to podcast every day and record the travels, the travels of the Jeffy. So we'll just see see how that does. Uh yeah. I think it'll be entertaining.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

So what else was I gonna tell you guys? Um I know I was thinking about something. I don't know what it was.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Well, the other thing I'm doing is, you know, I feel like I'm fighting with people lately, and I can't, you know, usually there's this thing of I don't know why I want to think of what it's this word that I can never think of, right? I'm always doing this because it's not a truism, because a truism truism isn't really true. Um it's a a fact of life, it's a good observation, a good rule of thumb, maybe that's it. Although, even though we're not supposed to use rule of thumb anymore, it's getting very difficult with language. Um the reason that you're not supposed to use rule of thumb anymore is because that originally comes from the law that a man could beat his wife with a stick as long as it was less than the diameter of his thumb. That was okay. So, you know, it refers to legal wife beating, which you know we're not supposed to, but you know, whatever. Um anyway, it's it's a truth. It's a truth in life that if you feel like everybody is against you, then it's the common factor is you. And so it's like the vibe that you're putting out. Um, sometimes I think that the universe just throws a lot of stuff at us at once to test us, so I can't tell what it is. But I've had um, you know, like my health insurance people were calling and bugging me because they said I didn't pay my premium in June, which I did. The, you know, and the money cleared my account on June 25th. And they're saying, you know, and they were calling me around the day before 4th of July, which would be the 3rd of July, Jeffy. Um, they called me and were haranguing me about it, and you know, and I said, hey, I'm looking at my account right here, and the money cleared my account on June 25th. And they said, Well, we don't have a record of it. And I'm like, Well, I can't help you there if you have a crappy accounting system. This, how is this my problem? You know, and they're like, Well, uh, can you fax us? I said, I could give you the check number, I can send you a screenshot, and they're like, Oh, well, can you fax us that documentation? And I said, No, nobody has fax machines anymore. And you know, she said, well, maybe you could drive to a staples. And I'm like, Yeah, where they will charge me, you know, like five, ten dollars to fax this thing, and plus I have to drive into town and take my time to do it. Megan said I should say, yeah, sure, I'll do that just as soon as you give me $25 to cover my time and expenses to rectify your mistake. Uh, you know, all these places when you have billing disputes, and this has happened with medical stuff too, same thing where the money is cleared our account and they say that we haven't paid. Um, and all of them insist on fax documentation. And I am convinced that they do this in order to create a barrier to make it more difficult for you to document to prove that you are correct. Um, because you know they'll let you pay by credit card over the phone. So that's super easy. It's like giving them more money is super easy, proving that you already paid them is super difficult, and it makes me mad. So I told they said, Well, maybe you can call back on Friday and see if you could talk to a supervisor about well, they'll accept a PDF or a screenshot. And I said, No, I'm not calling back because I don't have a problem. And she said, Well, I would hate to see your health care services disrupted. And oh boy, did that make me mad. Because you know, I'm not on any prescriptions, I don't have any pressing health issues. Uh, you know, so it doesn't matter to me if they temporarily suspend my health care. But can you imagine someone who's like on insulin who needs that prescription? You know, you're gonna go ahead and just give them the money because they're holding you hostage. Uh so there's that. And I'm mad at waste management because you know, our recycling pickup is every two weeks. Uh, our garbage is every week. I asked if they could reverse it and they said no. Because I mean, we we generate four times as much recycling as we do garbage, you know, and if and waste management's always mouthing about how there's so much, you know, green policy, this and you know, such green company. But so why won't they prioritize recycling service? And then the pickup is erratic, and I've had multiple problems with it. And on the 3rd of July, they didn't pick it up. And I called about it to say that they didn't pick it up, and they said, Well, what time did you bring your bin in? And I said, Oh, well, we brought it in around four, and they said, Oh, well, yeah, the driver says he was there at 4 30. You know, it's like, oh, well, how fucking convenient. Yeah, it's my fault. So I complained on Twitter. And the thing is, the thing is, and I'm sorry to rant to you guys about this, is that we can get a 12 pass, um, a 12 visit pass to the transfer station, which is not far from here, for garbage, and taking recycling there is free. And we can do that for $100 a year, and it costs us $95 a quarter for the curbside recycling. So I think I'm just gonna cancel with waste management and we're just going to do it ourselves. Just take everything over there ourselves. Um, I'm really tired of their screwing around. It'll be a little bit of an investment up front because we're going to have to buy our own bins. But I think we're just gonna do that. Uh I can't believe it just makes me so annoyed that they are so clearly not behind recycling. They really don't care. So there's our rant for the day, and I think between my two pieces, I've hit about 20 minutes here. Uh I guess that's all part of career author life, right? You know, dealing with cars and certainly with self-insuring. Uh uh. So yeah, I can't tell if it's me. I can't tell if I'm just like being difficult and stubborn, which, you know, oops, sorry, I was fixing my ponytail and set my bret down. But, you know, in many of these cases, I feel like I am fighting for the people who can't fight these battles, too. Uh, because I keep very good records. And it's like, no, I will not let you bully me into paying more money because this is your accounting problem. You fix your problem. So, on that note, I hope you all have a great Tuesday. Don't let people make you fix their problems. All right, you all take care. Bye bye.