Couch 214: The chihiro couch

Loan dog made a friend over Zoom in Greek class today. The older, auditing student had his French bulldog with him. They exchanged several polite barks.

What kind of dog is loan dog @@? Big, small, medium, color, markings? My mom has a 10 pound poodle who thinks she's a 50 pound dog and she has a bark like she is a much bigger dog than she is. She barks when people ring the doorbell and people automatically take some steps back. But then when they see she is really just a pipsqueak who just wants attention and loving from whoever is at the door they visibly relax.

Sounds like a good title for your memoirs...?

I just talked to the billing gal at my surgeon's office, she said she's been fighting with my insurance company for a week and a half already she said it's ridiculous she's never heard of insurance not wanting to pay for a one year followup after this surgery. I leave it in their capable hands.

Corgi, so what I would call the small end of medium range. 30 lbs. maybe.

Since hosting loan dog I have noticed that small dogs (smaller than loan dog) all seem to have Napoleon complexes and talk a great deal of smack.

They do - my two medium to largish dogs (60-80lb) are regularly bullied by little dogs. And the cats. And sometimes squirrels.
My dogs may be wusses

I worry about you.
I despise therapists but I do like Renee Fleming.

My friends have seemingly snapped or they hate me- I was sent two videos of them talking to small children. I find listening to small children painful even when they are talking to me. Watching someone else talk to them is like being stuck with burning needles.

It's funny because when I take Emma (my Mom's dog) to the park, her little 10 pound self thinks she is big stuff, but when we pass by the park for the big dogs, she turns her head the other way like if I can't see them, they can't see me. But her spunky little self will chase down the road after motorcycles if we can't stop her in time which has happened once or twice. I'm not sure if she has a Napoleon complex or she's just not the brightest crayon in the box. All of my pets are around the same size, the two cats and the dog, but the pecking order goes in the same order as age. Esther is queen of the house, followed by Emma the dog with poor little Amelia on the bottom. Occasionally Amelia will try to out-rank Emma but Emma just chases her around until Amelia goes and hides. However, no one disputes that Esther rules the roost. Whatever Esther dictates, goes.

My therapist has been submitting claims to my insurance, which is fine, except she is supposed to submit them to the mental health department of the insurance which is a totally separate procedure. So today I was on my insurance page checking on the status of a different claim, the one for the ambulance way back in January when I was unfortunately hospitalized, and I saw they had denied the claim for my therapist. I knew what happened, that she submitted it to the wrong place, but I didn't know if they could fix it on their end or if she had to resubmit. So I called my insurance company, got placed on hold a bit, and basically was told to tell my therapist the number on the back of the insurance card which says MENTAL HEALTH. I'm like duh! I can't believe my therapist can't figure this out. So I called my therapists office and was given her phone number, which I already had, so I was like forget that, I just texted her and let her know what was going on with the billing and how she could fix it. Partially because I want her to get paid and not send me the bill for $450, but also because I have met my out of pocket maximum for the year and would like to stop giving her checks (since COVID 19 I've had to send her checks to cover the copay) for copays that I do not owe because I've met the maximum. What a mess! So my therapist texted back, "thank you." Yeah, you're welcome lady!!!

I guess i was thinking Peggy Fleming.

I told you about the time i was in the Borders music section with a friend and she goes, "oh my favorite song, my favorite singer!" And i was like, "Jiminy Cricket?!" And she goes, "Rosemary Clooney..."

Im a country mouse. I never heard anybody else sing "When you wish upon a star" besides a cricket.

So you know, worry means love to me. My mom always worried about my brother, but she told me she didnt have to worry about me, because i was smaaart. So if you worry about me, does that mean you love me, or does it mean im not smart anymore??

My cousin in law sent me a video of a guy spritz-sanitizing himself until finally his cigarette explodes. It was totally roadrunner. She gets me.

Eta - its only tuesday, and its kinda like its friday.

Last night I started reading “Station Eleven,” published way back in 2014. It’s about the world twenty years after a devastating pandemic through the eyes of a Shakespearean touring company in what used to be Michigan.

There’s an early chapter in which she describes the initial onslaught of the pandemic—the hospitals, the grocery stores. It was so spot-on it felt like my hair was standing on end.

I enjoyed that book, but I'm not sure I would choose to read it right now.

Since we are on modified workweeks, the woman who is the receptionist/shipping person/project manager (everyone has two or three roles) is off on opposite days than me. So the woman that is in sales was like, "What time are you taking your break?" Me: "12:30" So she said she would go at 12. Okay, no problem, but she never came to relieve me. Not that it is a big deal. I sit at my desk and eat my lunch anyway, so it's not that big of a deal to answer the phone, but I just think it's funny when it sounds like someone is going to do you a favor and then they don't. It's like, why even ask? Oh well. Sigh. Another day in paradise!

Yesterday in session, somehow we ended up discussing, not for the first time, something that happened when I was 10. I didn't intend on talking about this, but it came up, so we did. I didn't cry in session, but when I got home and I had time to process our talk, I broke down sobbing. Ended up emailing my therapist. He hasn't responded so I guess he's not going to. I'm feeling a certain level of anger towards my mother right now because of this incident. I'm also trying to help her via email with her unclaimed money issue and I want to ask her if she even remembers this incident but that would probably lead nowhere good. I have no one I can talk to about this. I feel so alone. I don't know what the point of existing is if I can't have a real conversation with someone who isn't my therapist.

Hugs, NP. I hope you hear back from him. You do meet again this week, right? Feel free to talk about it here or PM me if you don't want it to be public.

Work is my safe place, and the idea of working via Zoom....is a necessary evil.
This period of time is really exposing what's not working in my life.

I agree Lost, working via Zoom is a necessary evil! I do like the instant messaging that I do on Skype even without the pandemic though to keep in contact with the East Coast coworkers. It's just quicker and more effective than email.

Pastor T was asking me what is hard about working only three days a week right now. He is like, is it the money or is it something else? Well, partly it is the money, but it is also that my routine is disrupted.

Hey couchies. So much going on lately. My oldest is living with us again. My youngest had her birthday Saturday but mail order presents still haven't arrived. My sister is even more unstable than the last time I mentioned it.

I'm still working in the office every day. It's like a ghost town and the lack of traffic on the roads is eerie. It's getting heavier these days, I think the stay home order is being taken lightly. We had a very low infection rate yesterday but today's results tripled so I have no faith in the data. I'm glad I still have my routine even though it frightens me to go anywhere. I was able to restock paper products and groceries, we are eating way too much fast food, and I'm just rambling.

Thanks for listening.

Yes, we're meeting tomorrow and Thursday. I just hate that bad, confusing memories get dredged up in session and I have a reaction to it and I'm just left alone to deal with the after effects. I hate myself that I have no one in my life I could even begin to talk about this with.

My school is discussing furloughs and pay cuts. We're not Harvard, so we don't have an endowment in the billions (nor did we get any federal money in the relief package).

My salary range would be a 15-20% pay cut. Which would be OK for me, even for a year, even at the same workload, provided they don't cut benefits--almost comprehensive health insurance and retirement contributions are the real plus values in our pay packages.

I know flexibility is key right now with everything going on, but I'm tired of people rescheduling on me this week already. My son's behavioral coach was supposed to talk to me yesterday morning, and he rescheduled after I texted him. Our CPS caseworker was supposed to come by this morning, but texted me 10 minutes before we scheduled to reschedule. I woke all the kids up for nothing and I had to reschedule something I had this morning to accommodate CPS.