First day of Fall

Today is September 22nd, the first day of Autumn, quite late in the month. I didn't realize it was so late -- this month went by quickly. Counting today, I have 9 days left to finish my September reading (three books -- I can probably handle that).

It rained heavily all last night, and it's still sprinkling a little today. Everything's sodden. When I said goodnight to the twins last night, I mentioned how lovely it is to fall asleep to the sound of rain. But instead I kept waking up to the sound of rain and then having trouble going back to sleep. I realized that rain still isn't as positive a thing as it used to be, for me, because it reminds me of the flood of 11 years ago. During the night, listening, I kept thinking that the rain was probably going straight down into our basement, like it did during the flood. No, I would tell myself, the ground isn't saturated. It's been very dry, the ground can probably hold a lot of water. The water is not going in the basement. And so on.

So today I'm kind of tired, even though I slept until 9 am. 

Maybe all those awakenings were sleep apnea. I've felt as though my sleep apnea is better since I started taking Mounjaro, but last night wasn't good. 

Speaking of Mounjaro, time for a disappointing update.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 237.4
• Weight this morning (after 14+ weeks on Mounjaro): 237.4
  

So I'm 17.2 lbs down in a little over 14 weeks, for an average of 1.23 lbs per week, but I did not lose any weight this week. In fact, most of the week I was up a couple of pounds, so I don't know how I dropped down this morning. We'll see. Maybe next week will be better. I did email my doctor to tell her that I think it's time to up the dose to 7.5 mg. Wonder how sick that will make me.

Even though I'm disappointed that my weight loss is stalling, I do like being this weight. To cheer myself up I look at my old weight notebooks. During the pandemic I was in the 260s. On September 6, 2020 I weighed 269.2. And on January 24, 2021 I weighed 272 pounds (a blip, but still, it showed me what could lie ahead). Can you see why 237.4 feels good? Lighter than air.

***

Rocket Boy gave notice at work this week. I'm not sure when his last day will be, but I'm guessing around October 1st. The day he's really interested in is tomorrow, September 23rd, because that's when his student loan payment will be deducted from his bank account. It will be his 120th payment made while working for a nonprofit (including all his years with the federal government as well as the months when he was teaching). Supposedly that means that what's left of his loans will be forgiven, even though "what's left" is currently much more than he ever took out, due to interest. I'm not sure what the total is now, but it's over $80,000. When I met him, 24 years ago, I think it was around $60,000, and he's made ALL those payments since then, including paying off one very high interest loan with some money he made on the stock market.

It's not clear to me whether this really will be the end of it, because Republicans have challenged Biden's student loan forgiveness programs in court. If they prevail, what will happen to people whose loans are already forgiven? Will they get all their debts back again, only higher due to the interest that's accrued while they thought they were done? I have a friend whose son's student loans were forgiven a couple of years ago. Will he too get his debts back again?

I don't really care that much, although RB does. Those student loans are part of our lives together. If they aren't forgiven, they will follow us around until Rocket Boy dies. I believe the payments will be deducted from RB's social security.

Speaking of social security, this week I had a long call with a woman from that agency to set me up as the twins' Representative Payee. Starting in October, when RB's payments start, they too will get money, about $700/month each, deposited into special accounts that I have to set up for them next week. I am not allowed to use the money to take a trip to Tahiti (this was her example) or otherwise spend it on myself. If Teen A goes out for football (also her example), I could use some of his money to pay for equipment. If Teen B goes on the band trip in March that he doesn't want to go on, I could use some of his money to pay for that. But otherwise I have to just save the money and give it to them when they turn 18 -- or graduate from high school, it wasn't quite clear. (The money stops when they turn 18 or graduate, whichever comes last, so that'll be May 2026.) Since the total could be as much as $14,000, it seems like a bad idea to just hand it to them -- Teen A will probably blow all of his on video games -- but that's the law.

I'm starting to think that I should sign up for social security too, get in on all this free money. But if RB does get this contract job, we won't need more income, in fact, it could be a problem for our taxes. So I'll just wait, at least until my "full retirement age" (67 -- three more years).

***

This was mostly a bad week. I had multiple interactions with people related to the young woman whose BMW I rear-ended last Sunday. First her dad called, and then her dad's "personal assistant," a man who said he also acts as the young woman's "fun uncle" when her CEO dad is out of town, which is often. It turned out that repairing the small dent and two scratches on the car's bumper would cost over $2100, because the whole bumper has to be replaced. So I said that was too much for me to come up with right now, and they should just go through insurance. 

It's not that we don't have $2100, it's just that this is not a good time to hand over $2100. With Rocket Boy leaving his job, and some uncertainty about where our income will be coming from for a while, plus possibly having to pay for our own health insurance for a month or perhaps more, plus the fact that we still don't have a functional furnace (it got down into the 40s last night), plus a big credit card bill this month due to a 6-month-old $1300 medical bill of RB's that popped up all of a sudden, plus whatever I've forgotten about... I can't be handing out checks for $2100 to little rich girls. RB talked to our insurance agent and she said it's likely that our insurance will go up $500/year for five years, due to this claim. Although that's stupid, it's not much more than the $2100 I would have to pay now, plus we get to spread it out over five years.

Normally I would have just paid the $2100, but our situation just feels unstable right now.

Anyway, getting all these phone calls really stressed me out. Even after I told them to go ahead and make an insurance claim, the "fun uncle" still called me and left a message about some problem they were having with the insurance. I didn't understand the message and decided to ignore it -- how am I supposed to sort out their insurance problems? I suspected that they wanted me to pay the deductible, which I was not going to do (they'll get it back eventually). And he hasn't called back. But I'm not convinced I've heard the last from that icky family.

I shouldn't call them icky. I know a lot about them now, due to internet sleuthing. They may live in an enormous house south of Denver, which according to Zillow is 8785 square feet with 8 bathrooms worth $3.5 million, and the dad has donated money to a Republican candidate. But hey, I'm sure they're lovely people.

I'm now terrified to drive, naturally. I only went to the grocery store once this week. Today was Starbucks day, and I refused to park in that parking lot. We parked in the main Basemar parking lot instead and walked over to Starbucks, Teen B complaining all the way. As we walked past the Starbucks parking lot, I saw a car backing out and another car honking at it, and I shuddered.

I'm trying to think of places I could walk to, rather than drive.

***

One nice thing happened this week -- my old high school friend Z'bet came for a short visit. That was Tuesday morning. I had a parent support group meeting scheduled for 11 am, but I decided not to tell Z'bet about it. She ended up leaving right around 11 am (to drive on to Nebraska), but at that point I didn't want to go to the meeting, I wanted to hang around home and think about our conversation.

I hadn't seen her in 27 years, since she helped me move from Ann Arbor to Boulder back in July 1997. She drove the rental truck and I drove my little Toyota, with my old cat Edward yowling in the seat beside me. That's a long time, 27 years, but also, important things happened to both of us during that time. She had just gotten married a month or two before the trip, but in 2004 (I think?) her daughter was born. I got married 5 years after the trip and then in 2008 the twins were born. So when we did the trip she was just barely married and I hadn't even met Rocket Boy, and neither of us were parents yet. Now her daughter is in college and my sons are juniors in high school. We're very different people, because parenthood changes you. 

But at the same time we're also exactly the same as we always were. It was so so fun to spend a couple of hours talking with her. She retired from her teaching job a few years ago, so we're both retired, I guess, although I keep thinking I might go back to work someday. I suppose that idea is getting less and less likely.

Toward the end of our conversation I managed to tell her how important she'd been to me in high school. We were both part of a large nerd friend group, managed by her. Her "management" consisted of being welcoming to absolutely anyone who stopped by at lunch (we all ate together), even people who were just completely beyond the pale. She also was always checking in with people, making sure everyone was OK. And all summer long she had pool parties on Friday afternoons, giving everyone a chance for some socializing once a week. I told her I thought the good behavior that she modeled kept everyone in the group on their best behavior and made high school a happier place for everyone. 

I'm glad I got the chance to tell her that. I hope we'll see each other again, but you never know.

After she left I spent some time thinking about people's lives and what I've done with mine and what I still want to do. The older I get, the clearer it gets, although often I feel as though I should strive for more. I want to read and write, that's primary, and I want to go outside and look at birds and trees and plants. I want to finish raising the twins and stay on good terms with them, I want to have fun with Rocket Boy, and I want to stay in touch with my family and friends, what's left of them. I want to vote Democratic in every election. I'd like to travel, but it doesn't have to be anything exotic -- whatever we can afford to do is fine. 

I feel as though I am no longer a driving force in the world, if I ever was. Probably I never was. This comes up when I'm reading the New Yorker. There are often very depressing articles about terrible things that are happening in the world (Israel, Ukraine, domestic terrorism, climate change nightmares), and I often skim those articles, or even skip them altogether. Then I feel guilty: you should pay attention to these terrible things, I tell myself. And then I ask myself, why? What am I going to do about them? I'll continue to vote for Democrats (and subscribe to the New Yorker, so that it can keep running those articles) and hope for the best.

I do feel that I should still find a way to "contribute" to the world -- volunteer work, or being a substitute teacher, or something like that. Maybe some such opportunity will present itself. Or maybe I will go on the way I have been. Either way, I don't think the world will care. I am feeling superfluous. I suppose that's part of growing older.

***

Well, here comes the last full week of September. I've pretty much given up trying to get ready for Rocket Boy. It's all I can do to keep the kitchen clean and the clothes washed and the litter boxes scooped. I am going to try to make a Goodwill run before he gets here, but not much more than that. At some point this medicine has got to stop making me feel so bad... but I don't know when that will be.

Maybe I will feel better if the BMW owner's people stop calling me. 

Rocket Boy called on Friday and asked me to look through the boxes of books he brought home the week before -- for a library book he couldn't find that was overdue. Sure enough, there it was in a box. I pulled it out and mailed it back to the St. Louis public library on Saturday.

Baby Kitty has a nail-clipping appointment on Monday, and I must go to the credit union and get those special bank accounts set up and then call social security back and give them the account numbers. I think that's all I have scheduled for the week. Next Sunday is Sillers' birthday -- she will be 7. And next weekend is a three-day weekend -- the Monday is a teacher day off, work day, something like that.

Looking out the window I see the clouds have mostly gone and the sky is a brilliant blue. I love early fall, such a pretty time.