Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The More it Changes -- The More it's the Same

Today was a pretty easy normal day. Nothing really unusual.

We did take Marty to the dentist this afternoon. I hate going to the dentist myself, so just double that for taking your invalid wife. Marty has recently had some pretty substantial dental work done and had her bridge replaced. Now here is an interesting fact. I have been married to this woman for 32 years and have known her for longer than that. We have talked about virtually everything a married couple can talk about, we have seen each other at our best and our worst, and I didn't know she had a bridge until two years ago. It wasn't until I took her to the dentist the first time and the dentist asked me when she had the bridge put in place and I said -- good question. You think you know everything but sometimes you just don't know what questions to ask.

This evening we went to one of Obama's Organizing for America's health care meetings. There were about 20 people there and they wanted us to relate our health care stories to them. A local Pediatrician led the session and broke everyone into groups to talk about their experiences. We were supposed to steer away from policy and just talk about our issues. You just don't know how hard that was for me. Since I'm retired I always have an opinion, a solution and time to tell you about it. Aren't you lucky.

So we get to the sharing part and I get up to give my testimony, my story. I talk a bit about our history and how difficult it was to find personal insurance. I made the comment I was apparently too short for insurance, or at least too short for my weight. Everyone thought this was pretty funny, even Marty who said in a loud conversational tone, "Bless his heart", which of course brought further laughter. Then others started to share and after about five minutes at that same volume, Marty looks at her caregiver, Renae, completely bypasses me, and says, "would you take me to get a Diet Coke", which Renae did. Marty has never suffered pontification gently. She still doesn't.

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