Possumworld

I realize that it has been ages since I last posted and I have no real excuse, other than that I suppose life has been quiet and relatively uninspiring. That’s not a bad thing; it just means that all is quiet here in the Possum Kingdom.

We’re in that time of year between the May holidays (most of the month of May) and summer vacation season, which really kicks in in July. The weather is still deciding what it wants to do; one day being hot and summery, the next stormy and cool, which I don’t really mind. I actually prefer not having long spells of one thing or the other, because it doesn’t give you a chance to get tired of it and start complaining!

We’ve been enjoying the cherries on the trees of Weasel’s Wort, the garden belonging to friends who won’t be here until mid-July when the cherries will be long gone. I’m feeling too lazy to make jam, so we just stop in while walking the dogs and snack on them straight from the trees. I think they taste best that way anyway; all fresh and warmed by the sun. My tomato plant experiment seems to be working and I already have half-a-dozen small tomatoes on the vines. The courgette doesn’t look as good though, so maybe it doesn’t like being in a container so much.

Right next to the garden is an area that used to be used as an official dump that would periodically be carted away by village employees. Last year a notice was sent around that it was no longer to be used for that purpose and the gardeners were to compost on their own properties and take non-compostable to the town dump for disposal. Well, you might as well tell the stars not to come out at night! The pile has  continued to grow unabated and there have been rather unsavory rustlings in it of late. Last weekend, it was clear that someone had had enough and the whole thing was mysteriously set ablaze! No one bothered to call the fire department, since it is on the bank of the river and there was no real threat to anything nearby. It burned for about two days, even during a rainstorm!

The pile is now a charred mass, and whatever was living in it is gone for now, but guess what? The garden folk are already starting to load it up with new detritus! They never learn.

Ciao for now.

Randy

The French system works in an interesting way. Every one is covered by Social Security. How much you pay is determined by your income and is re-evaluated on an annual basis. There is a base figure and if you make more than that, you pay premiums of 8% on your income above that base figure. If you make below the base figure, you pay nothing.

Social security pays 70% of the cost of most medical stuff, unless you have a chronic condition, and in that case everything to do with that condition is paid for 100%. For the difference in what SS covers and what you are charged, most people get a supplemental policy. You can choose various options for that covering more dental and eye care, and a higher level of coverage for specialists who charge a bit more, etc.

If your income is REALLY low, you get supplemental coverage free of charge as part of your SS.  For the last 3 years JM and I have had that coverage, even though we never really felt we deserved it. It’s really meant for those who are really poor, and although we don’t make much money, I don’t really think we count as poor. After all, we own our own home and we have savings. But SS wasn’t really set up to take that kind of thing into account.

This year they changed the way the determine who is qualified for free supplemental coverage so that things like property, savings accounts, etc., ARE taken into consideration, so we no longer qualify. Again, we don’t really mind, but it did mean that we needed to do something quickly, because the supplemental coverage we have runs out next Tuesday.

So, we went to the company we had previously used. We had kept an extra small policy with them to pay for private rooms in case of hospitalization, so we’re already considered clients. Basically, we went in, decided which level of coverage we wanted and that was it. No medical questionnaire, no worries about them taking us because of past history, etc. Premiums are totally based on our age and that’s it. Our coverage automatically starts on Tuesday.

We took the policy that pays for the most dental coverage, etc. For the two of us it’s around 1600 euros a year.  We were paying around 1100 dollars a month for less coverage than that when we left L.A.

All-in-all, I think it’s a pretty good deal!

Ciao for now.

Randy

The dreaded fair left on Sunday evening and we all managed to survive, more or less. Frankly, given the rather hideous weather that prevailed most of the weekend, I can’t imagine that any of the carnies made much money.

Mom was really and truly miserable with the ride in front of her house. It blocked whatever light there was, but the worst was the horrible music interrupted every 15 minutes or so by a horn blowing “La Cucaracha!” Even Mom, who hates to complain, was complaining by Saturday night.

Still, it is time to move on. We’re safe until 2012, which is the next time it will be setting up on our side of the village. I hope to be able to negotiate to not have something quite so invasive in front of her house.

JM and I escaped on Sunday to go to the Fete du Pain in the village of Routiers in the Razes. That was an interesting experiment ins seeing what other villages do. First we realized that it’s a lot easier to get to Chalabre than some of the other villages. That mostly has to do with road size. The roads near Routier are a little wider than a tractor, which made for some interesting encounters while going there and back. Giant RVs do NOT make for friendly fellow travelers on roads of that size. There were a couple of times when I was worried that Beanie would wind up in a ditch as we moved over to the side to make room.

Routier is very attractive, but it is perched on a hill. I was so glad that we had not brought Mom with us, because I truly don’t believe she would have been able to make it from the parking lot up into the main town. I would imagine that long term residents there have very strong legs and lungs!

The event was quite well attended and we were lucky that we arrived during a portion of the afternoon where there was some sunshine. It was really not a great weekend for festivities, unfortunately. Still, it was nice to get out for a bit. I’m afraid that we didn’t really see much though, because it was very crowded and difficult to walk around. I guess we weren’t the only ones craving a bit of sunshine and fresh air.

And, that craving for sunshine remains only semi-fulfilled right now. Generally, after the weekend of Ascension, the weather turns warm and sunny. We had a beautiful day yesterday, but it hasn’t lasted. Today has been overcast, cool and windy with only brief periods of sun. I do hope we’re not going to have a summer like the one a couple of years ago where most of June and July were cold and rainy.

Please feel free, when it is broiling hot in July, to remind me of this as I sit here complaining about being too hot and wishing for the cooler days of fall!

Ciao for now.

Randy

This is May and we should really be thinking of all those flowers brought on by April showers. But we didn’t have showers in April, we had glorious sunshine and temperatures in the 80s F (upper 20s C). It was so wonderful that I didn’t listen to the counsel of various neighbors and I planted five tomato plants in Weasel’s Wort, a garden belonging to some friends who are kindly letting us use it while they are in Mordor.

Now, many of my neighbors warned me not to, but about half of those I polled were also planting early. Weren’t we silly? Last Tuesday (May 4th) we had a SNOWSTORM!!! Yes, in the month of May. And, it was so heavy and unexpected, accompanied by high winds, etc., that there were massive power blackouts all over the place. We wound up without power for eight hours, which is a bit of a bummer when your cooking and heating are all dependent on electricity.

An Unusual Sight for Spring

We had closed up our fireplace for the summer the week before and kept thinking, “Well, the power is bound to come back soon,” so we didn’t feel like opening it up again. (We close it off with a kind of door, otherwise wasps are attracted to the cool inside the chimney, then follow the light down into the house; not nice.)

So, there we sat, waiting. Luckily I DID buy a small, gas camping stove after hurricane Klaus in January of 2009, so I was able to make myself the all important instant coffee I needed to keep me alive until power was restored. I was going to try cooking eggs on it, but it’s so hard to do anything in the semi-dark that we decided to stick with eating cold stuff. Once again I wondered if it would be worth it for us to buy a generator, but for now I don’t think so.

The joke is that at around 3:30 the power flickered on, something that is often a sign that all power is about to come back. In this case, that was not true and the power remained off for a further four hours.

It was not only humans who were thrown out of kilter by this unexpected turn of events. The swallows were wheeling around in the sky and screeching. I’m sure they hadn’t the slightest idea of what to do, poor things. Then, when we walked the dogs, we ran across someone’s goose which had escaped into the gardens. Peaches and Shmoo were ready to bring home goose dinner, but we managed to hold them back.

To top things off, the rivers were going wild. I have seen them high before, but the Hers was about as high as it’s been since we moved here; at one point I would say it was about two feet from the top of the bank. Normally, it’s about 20 feet from the river to the bank, so you can see that was impressive.

But wait, there’s more!  On Sunday, before the snow, we came across another bit of weirdness to equal the strange hot air micro climate that we had just before Christmas. We saw our very own, mini CROP CIRCLE!!!

Every year, most of the local villages have their own, mini-Rio style Carnavale. This weekend was ours and we were lucky to have absolutely glorious weather. There have been some years where it has been way too cold for dancing in the streets. And, the first year that we were here it actually snowed (although to be fair, it was much earlier, in March).

No chance of snow this weekend though. The temps have been running in the 20s C/70s to 80s    F; the sun is shining and there hasn’t been a cloud in the sky.

The Saturday night part of the event is basically an excuse for making a lot of noise and getting blind drunk. Sunday is a bit more of a family affair, with the kids all dressing up, and a few floats going around the village, until the finale when the king of the Carnavale (Badaluc) is burned to a crisp.

I took some video, so you can all share in the fun.

Ciao for now!

Randy

I wanted to write about how beautiful things are here right now. The greens seem greener than ever following all the snow of this winter. The sky is a gorgeous blue (possible aided by volcano ash!) that makes you wish you could keep the color in your heart forever.

But evil lurks in that luxuriant grass.

My Shmoo is a big, powerful, healthy boy who learned all he knows from the BCs in his life (the late Diva Maggie McMiggins and his new girl, Miz Peaches LaRoo). In the almost four years that he’s been a part of our family, the only time he was really ill was when he ate Maggie’s leather collar!

So, on Friday when he wasn’t acting himself, I knew something was wrong. Yesterday it was clear he wasn’t feeling well. He wouldn’t play with Peaches and he turned down his favorite dried chicken treats. Then, last night he felt warm to me and was panting a lot.

This morning I checked the color of his urine and it seemed dark to me, although not brown. But I still thought that there was a good chance that he had picked up canine piroplasmosis (canine babesiosis) so I called our vet who is a good man and will see you at ANY time there is an emergency.

Shmoo definitely had a fever and a blood smear showed that my suspicion was correct; it was definitely the dreaded piro.

I’m lucky I got him to the vet’s in time, as three injections later we were out the door and on the way to recovery. He still needs to take a diuretic for the next five days to protect his kidneys from damage, but the chances are strong that he’ll make a complete recovery.

This proves that not even careful tick protection can keep the little nasties totally at bay. There is a vaccine available. It has had mixed results, but I’m thinking that if I use that and continue the tick protection we’re upping our odds of keeping the dogs from getting this again. I know we can’t wrap them in a cocoon of protection, but sort of wish that I could!

My boy is resting comfortably now, and we are all grateful to modern medicine at the moment.

Ciao for now.

Randy

Our local GP is on vacation. I knew he was going on vacation, but thought he would be gone this week and next. Mom needed to get her prescriptions renewed, which entails a doctor’s visit once every three months, as there are no over the phone refills here. Our doc thinks, and I agree with him, that seeing your doctor four times a year when you’re on regular medication is not a burden.

However, having discovered that he was on vacation last week and this week, I realized that NEXT week, when Mom’s prescriptions run out, his office will be a zoo. My guess is there will be a minimum of a two-hour wait every morning next week, and there are no evening appointments until 7 pm or so. Since he always runs late, that means 8 or 9 pm, which is just too late for us.

So, since Mom doesn’t have any current problems, I figured we could go and see the replacement doctor.

There is a service that doctors can use, where mostly Baby Doctors (the ones just out of medical school) can work as little or as much as they want and take over for doctors who are going on holiday. It’s really a great system. They keep the same office hours, handle emergencies and are just there to take up the slack. What was interesting for me was knowing that there would be very few patients in the waiting room, as most people would rather wait for their regular doc to return.

As it turned out, there was an article in this morning’s newspaper about the fact that in the next few years, our department is going to have a major doctor crisis. The average age of doctor’s in the Aude is higher than in many other areas, so many of them are going to retire. Young doctors don’t want to set up rural practices, because they make less money, work harder and are farther away from the “big city.” It’s going to be a problem.

I was mentioning this to Mom in the car and somehow it turned into an anti-Obama health care rant. I’m not proud of myself, but I lost it. I mean, there I was, driving her to a doctor’s appointment where almost ALL of her care is covered 100% by French social security because of chronic illnesses, and she is complaining about health care reform in the U.S. On top of that, although we do have a supplemental policy here to cover the small portion of her bills that are not paid 100%,  the social security portion of her care is FREE this year, because her income was too low for her to be required to pay a premium.

When I started explaining all of this to her, she admitted that she didn’t really know what was in the U.S. Healthcare Reform package. So why was she against it? She has no idea, but FAUX says it’s bad, so it must be. By the time we got to the doctor’s office, she did actually admit that she didn’t want people like JM and me to die in the streets because we weren’t insured, and she did remember that her insurance company had denied her late husband’s chemo therapy as being unnecessary, then approved it AFTER he was dead.

I apologized for getting so worked up, but honestly, I couldn’t believe she would have the nerve to complain. I asked her if she liked her healthcare here and she admitted she loves it. I sure wish I could get her to think more often!

When we got to see the doctor, Mom’s blood pressure was pretty high. I had to explain to the doc that I thought that was my fault and told her why. Then we discussed the American situation a bit. As usual when I tell anyone here about the way things are in the States, they kind of stare at me in disbelief. I think I scared her, because she’s going to visit her sister in Canada next week and was worried about what would happen to her if she had a car accident or something. I reassured her that Canada was NOT the States, and she could rest easy.

It turned out to be a lot more interesting a visit than I had imagined.

Ciao for now,

Randy

Poor Iceland; it really hasn’t been their year.

One of the things I haven’t missed about living in Los Angeles is the ever-present worry about “the Big One.” I know that there are small earthquakes in our region, but they probably wouldn’t even be noticed on a typical California day.

So, instead, what do I have to worry about? Volcanic ash! To be honest, I doubt it will get to our area, or if it does, by the time it does, there won’t be much of it. But who thinks about that as a possible problem?

With air traffic in all of northern Europe affected, it has made us all realize that Mother Nature does not have much of a sense of humor. Imagine if the Iceland volcano continues to erupt, or even erupts to Krakatoa levels, what that could mean!

We so take for granted our modern existence that we forget how quickly everything could change. We know about global warming, but do we really FEEL what major climate changes will mean? Perhaps something like this will bring home to us the reality of life on Earth and help us to make important changes to fix things while we can. Even though this is not caused by us, we should really look at the things we HAVE caused and try to change our ways.

Are you all using your re-usable cloth bags when you shop? Do you recycle? Turn off excess electrical appliances? Use less plastic? I know you do; but maybe you can each convince one more of your friends that they should start doing these things as well.

Off my soapbox now.

Ciao for now.

Randy