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From the VA Hospital: Maybe there’s no free lunch. But breakfast?

Today was a long day at the DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston. I had a five-hour wait to see the doctor. There was nothing that could have been done with that for various personal circumstances.

My 45-minute or so visit with the neurologist went probably better than any visit in a great while. The doctor has agreed to take me off the side-effect-ridden Cymbalta and put me back on another drug I once took for the same conditions. What was even better was I got the neurologist to put me in a consultation with a neurosurgeon because of my back pain. This would be after undergoing another MRI on my back and an EMG. Now I had an EMG earlier this year or later last year. I can’t remember. That was to determine problems with my hands and fingers, which was then diagnosed as carpal tunnel. I was given two gigantic black braces for each hand, both bearing the U.S. Flag. When I don them both, I look like someone gearing up for bomb disposal, such as in the movie, “The Hurt Locker.” The braces aren’t very practical for my work as I disarm or detonate very few, if any, bombs in my daily comings and goings.

However long it takes after all the tests I will consult with the neurosurgeon as to whether I need back surgery and, if so, whether I will ask for it. I see that as a long way down the line. I have decided that I need to try and access a better physical shape and improve my health. Along with that, I also should start thinking long and hard about how to medically retire from my paying job and determine how to live on however meager the pittance might be. Time to be a vagabond, perhaps?

As ridiculously long as the day has left me, I did come away with one of those head-spinning acts of humanity.

I got some bacon and eggs, a sausage, and a biscuit along with a cup of coffee this morning at the Patriot Cafe. The cafe is the dining hall inside the huge DeBakey hospital. They have about four cashiers who have customers paying on either side of them. I went to one of those tellers and only a single customer was on the other side.

I hardly noticed the other customer on the other side except to note that she looked as if she was a VA employee and that she had a small item, a coffee perhaps. I thought I heard the cashier ask the young woman if she was paying for mine too. I was somewhat stunned but figured what I heard must have been in error. The other customer paid and walked off.

The cashier turned to me as I held my plastic in my hand. “She paid for yours,” she said. I was then truly dumb-founded. I quickly turned around and saw the generous woman as she was walking out the door. “Thank you very much,” I told her, though not very loudly as I was still wondering took place.

“Did you know her?” the cashier asked me, about the woman. “No,” I told her.

Thus ended a long day that left me wearisome and tired. The mysterious VA worker’s generosity might have been misplaced or mistaken. Or maybe she saw the tiredness in my eyes. Or maybe she was just messing with my head. Be it far from me to look good fortune in the mouth. Or anywhere else. Including in my local VA hospital

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Oh See, see-questration, oh see what it has done, oh, oh, oh …

Bet you all thought Sequestration was nothing but talk and no action. Or as they say, somewhere, maybe Mexico, maybe Texas, that it was all s**t and no cows. It turns out that the latter was only a tiny bit close to reality.

So while you are sitting out on your porch, smelling the fresh hay and the real cow s**t, take a gander at this great Pro Publica story. The “public interest journalism” site has an interesting look at how the mandatory government spending cuts are slowly building a massive head of steam. The S-word from Capitol Hill is rapidly becoming as dirty a word as the four-letter slang S-word for a bodily function.

No cows indeed, sonny boy!

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What to call the ex-Pope, Sequestration woes, and thanks for all the fish

Today brought a little relief for me. First, I found out that my bunch won’t be getting the old sequestration up the butt, at least no furloughs, and at least for now. That is, of course, if sequestration comes knocking Friday, as it seems to be headed that way. At any rate I can now rest until next month until the next manufactured crisis and threats from the Tea Party emerge once more to shut down the government.

And relief for all those others who have been frantically worrying … we now know what the Pope will be called once he retires. Are you ready? He will be called Ben Bernanke. No, just kidding. He will be called Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus. I don’t know if I could sleep at night if I didn’t know what to call the pope after he sails off into the sunset in his little Ex-Pope Sailboat named the “Così lungo. E ringrazia per tutto il pesce.”  Look it up in one of the online translators and only if you are a friend of Douglas Adams.

I find humor in strange places. Under the bed. Under the table. Under water. Underground. Undercover. Really, I’ve never been undercover, in the TV police style. I participated in a surveillance once of someone, who someone else, thought that the first someone might torch his house. Stake-out! In a hotel room, no less. Maybe I will tell you about it sometime, if I haven’t already.

Seriously, although it looks as if I may have dodged the sequestration bullet, hundreds of thousands, perhaps, will likely not. The Republican Tea Party Boys and Girls in the House are patting themselves on the back for all the cut dollars. Meanwhile, the more established of the GOP House members are, as my Daddy used to say,  “Sweating like a whore in church.” These wise men know that if Sequestration takes place, and then the closure of government later on, it will cause an economic disaster. Our unemployment numbers were finally going the right way. Some folks are even seeing a healthy economy emerge. But when you have thousands go without work, for even a day, that represents money not spent. It doesn’t take an economist to figure all this stuff out.

It’s so terribly depressing. But at least we know what to call the Pope after he retires. Aren’t you glad? I know I am certainly relieved, and I am not even Catholic.

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Sequestration might not be such a bad thing for me, was it not such a bad thing

You know, I would kind of like the looming Sequestration was it not that I am squarely in its sights.

The runaway train of automatic spending cuts seems hell-bent on crashing somewhere even though the president has called the top Republicans a week before the magic date of March 1. I am just guessing but if Congress and the Obama administration do anything at all, they will kick the can down the road a little more and we’ll have to go through all of this stressful crap over again. Yes, I’m worried. And my dog is worried. Actually, I have no dog. But if I did have one, it would be worried.

My part-time job is my money-maker at the moment. I must find someway to supplement it or do something else. Of course, any of that is down the path. If furloughs hit if or when Sequestration comes it will be incremental, like death by a thousand paper cuts.

So you have federal guys who will lose nearly a quarter of their annual salary. Some government contractors — especially ones working for the Pentagon — could see their jobs go “poof.” The Sequestration will cause even more economic chaos than one might imagine with the loss of jobs and the loss of spending dollars for both working folks and the unemployed. You could see even longer lines going through security at the airport. Maybe stacked up flights. We may lose some of the gains made at controlling the borders because la migra might see furloughs. The job loss could cause economic panic, a return to 2008 and the almost-Depression, through a lack of spending and shattered economic confidence.

That takes me back to the lead. The Republicans have it all planned out. The Sequestration will make the deep cuts the GOP wants and they are already blaming it on the Democrats and especially Obama. But not so fast GOP. The Republicans might be good at running out the clock. Yet Obama still has the public on his side. Once the damage is done from the massive spending cuts, the ticked-off will look for someone to blame. That blame has an easy target nicknamed the Grand Old Party.

It will be a windfall for Democrats, of whom I am one. It will also be a disaster for those who will be hurt by Sequestration, of whom I also am one. So there you go — you’ve got your classic win-lose. And such a victory doesn’t look very sweet right now.

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A what-questration are you talking about?

This President’s Day off has been spent updating my resume. That task does not mean I am looking for another job. Rather, I am looking for additional jobs. I have to do something, considering the prospect looming only 10 or so days away when “Sequestration” could begin. Here is a handy-dandy little guide as to just what Sequestration is although I could give an answer in three words or less: “It’s a bitch.”

As a career, part-time worker for Sam I face the possibility of as many as 22 days on furlough. Just what that means to me I am unsure. I don’t work every day. I don’t work the same hours every day. Thus, I don’t make the same amount of pay each week, or more importantly, every two weeks. Two is when I get my paycheck. Except when there is a banking holiday like today. I have to wait an extra day to get my pay then.

Unless you work for the government or are somehow tied to the government of Sam, then you may not have thought much about Sequestration. The talking heads on TV speak of it as just another concept to debate. I have hoped for a last-minute deal between the administration and Congress as in the past. But it doesn’t seem to be coming. Sequestration may have what some Democrats think are positive consequences. I think the President may figure if an economic calamity comes he can blame it on the GOP. The Republicans don’t seem to care. A sequester might possibly make the cuts to government that all the little knot-headed Tea Party people want. A win-win as politicians might say.  It may also drive us into another recession or depression. If such does not happen on a national scale surely it will on a personal level.

So when your stock prices start falling like flies into a pesticide fog, remember what happened. Oh that sequestration thing. I think I spoke to some homeless guy on the street a while back who told me that it was what had caused his slide.

Yes, I imagine that had something to do with it, and thank you for your concern, a**hole!