Oh CRAP! .... I'm 60!

My hand still hurts too much to say much, but will share this photo from years ago, the first time Kevin made my birthday cake:

Wells Fargo's Treatment of Its Employees: Epic Incompetence

So here's a summary, since I don't like to think about it, so don't want to write it a bunch of times:

Regular salary: Wells Fargo simply stopped paying me for the last month I was working (June). I went through multiple phone options, and multiple clueless people, and ended up with the WorkComp people, who said it was because they couldn't get it together what hours I'd worked (!). Finally, they deposited some pay on 7/14. The amount didn't look right, so I called WF's Payroll, and had my pay stubs sent to me. Sure enough, the 6/30 salary is missing. So I shall have to go back into the fray and fight for my last period's pay. I might add that Wells Fargo's employee procedures are horrendously fragmented -- each department only handles a tiny slice of the whole picture, and absolutely no one has any idea what else is going on or what status it's in. It's not unusual to be passed through 5 or 6 people.

Short Term Disability pay: After a lot of stonewalling, I just got a letter saying my STD was rejected because Wells Fargo told them that they would have accomodated my reduced hours. This is a bald-faced lie. Either the STD folk are lying about WF said to them, or Wells shamelessly lied to them. I have the dates, times, and participants of numerous occasions where I was told emphatically and clearly that there would be no accommodation on the "performance plan" including for the time I was out with neck surgery. This plan, mind you, is one that has all the able bodied team members working 14 hours a day. So that's been sent to my attorney.

Crocker annuity: I just got a cc'd on a letter from the handlers of Crocker's plan to Wells Fargo, saying that they can't begin my payments because Wells Fargo won't respond to their requests for verification of my work status. When I called Wells Fargo they answered only that they would send it today, with no explanation as to why they'd stonewalled it. This amount will be very tiny, but at this point we're talking groceries.

401K: Much as I don't want to chip into that, I'll clearly have to. WF sent me forms to fill out for disbursement of funds, and I filled them out, and mailed them in. I checked into them several weeks ago, to make sure all was in order, and the Wells Fargo agent wasn't sure (!). I couldn't understand why he wasn't sure, and he couldn't give me an explanation. But he figured it was "probably" all right. So I called again yesterday, and this time the agent searched around -- somewhere? -- and said no forms have been received. He had no explanation for that, but assured me he would send me a new set of forms in the mail. I wonder what will become of this new set when I send them in.

Insurance coverage: The one bright spot was that I'd signed up to pay for continuation of my health insurance, and it would be carried over seamlessly on 6/30. With the unresolved health issues, that was a load off my mind. Imagine my surprise when I got a letter from Kaiser dated 7/12 notifying me that my coverage had lapsed and was cancelled. I searched my online statement, and they had in fact deducted the insurance payment from my account, but -- not until July 5th!! And they had somehow managed to not get the payment to Kaiser by the 12th. When I called Wells Fargo (more phone pinball) they were quite uninterested, and felt sure that Kaiser would get the payment some time or other. They would not explain why the payment hadn't been deducted until the 5th (and weren't interested). I guess it's another incident of having just "forgot." Dealing with Wells Fargo is just a thrill a minute.

On the medical front: a whole lot of nothing continues to be done. The WC (WorkComp) doctor wants me to repeat the neck surgery I had in May, which was horrendously painful and cost a lot of money to get to, and gave no improvement. I couldn't understand why we'd repeat something useless, and he said maybe it will help this time. I've noted that he obviously has a very good relationship with the firm that does the surgery. Then the surgery folk left me a phone message to say they'd received authorization for the next one, and to call them for an appointment. So I called them, and they said, no, they hadn't received my authorization. I said they had, that it was their office that had called me to say so, but they insisted they didn't have it. I gave it a few days and called again, in hopes of getting someone else (think Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the crusaders ask the hostile Frenchman "Is there someone else we can talk to?"], and this person said yes, they had the authorization. But she wanted me to make a post-op/pre-op appointment with the aide (another expensive trip) to review again the results of the last one. But when we started to make the appointment, she said there was a problem with the aide's schedule, and she'd call me back. She never did, of course, so I called back, and it turns out the aide has left their firm and she set me up with a new person for 8/9. I don't have fine use of my hands (hand writing, opening packages, etc.) at all now, a lot of the time, but the hand surgeon doesn't want to deal with that until the neck surgery/ies are dealt with.

And the WC doctor continues to say that I can work 6 hours a day, another bald faced lie, a lie that prevents me from getting any assistance or voice software. All other doctors, including his own hand consultant, insist that I shouldn't be doing any keyboarding at all, certainly not more than an hour or two a day. I'm not sure what his motivation is for this falsehood, but it will look bad for him when the other doctors testify against him.

It seems ironic that after paying STD and LTD insurance fees all my life, for decades, thinking it was protection in case I ever need it -- the insurance was all a fraud and a scam, and here I am with zero income. After decades of busting my tail.

What is the world coming to?

Short story: Destiny

I scanned each pen, trying to ignore the smell of pine disinfectant. I knew exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a cat to replace my beloved Rumpole. Rumpole had been a sociable lace-point, both loving and lovely. When I'd strolled through the pound all those years ago he'd literally reached out and snagged me. I was smitten. It didn't hurt that he was well formed and exotic looking, but the real clincher was his affectionate nature.

He'd been dead six months now, and I missed him, and I wanted that hole in my life to be filled. I was here to find another Rumpole.

For the fourth time, my feet dragged me unwillingly back to the cage of a scrawny, plain black kitten. Not even a kitten, really, he had to be five-six months old. And no personality whatsoever, unless you count raw fear as personality. I didn't.

"Yeah. What. So," I muttered, letting myself into his pen. Black kitty was clinging with all his might to a twine-covered cat pole in the center of the pen. Against my will, I stroked him. He clung tighter still, his eyes huge with terror. As if possessed by alien spirits, I cradled him and plucked his claws from the twine, bringing him to my chest. He clung there, frozen.

An attendant hurried by on some task but stopped in surprise when she saw me in his pen. I made some vague and foolish gesture at him, and she approached.

"This is his last day with us," she said. "He's been marked 'unplaceable.'"

I raised an eyebrow.

"People want younger kittens," she explained. "And most of all they want playful, loving kittens."

She's right about that, I thought.

"But this poor fellow... I guess we'll never know what all happened to him, but it's sure left its mark. A shame." She scanned my face.

"Rmglmph," I said. She left, on about her business. This was so-o-o not the cat I wanted.

I tried to dislodge him and put him back on his pole, but it was much harder to get him off of me than it had been to get him off the pole. I rolled my eyes. I made exasperated noises.

"Well, time for me to go find my cat," I told him heartily. "I wish you well. Really." I stared out at the other pens. "I'm sure you'll find somebody." He kept staring at me with those desperate gold eyes.

"Oh, hell!" I snapped, more at me than at him. I looked around for another attendant, to get a carrier box and get on with it. Though it wouldn't have seemed possible, he adhered even tighter to me.

My own fox pix -- finally

At last, at last, I finally put up the first batches of my little orphans. You can see them at:
http://www.lehuanet.com/fish_and_bowl/

Definition of Pícaro

I think of pícaro as "rascally" or "naughty," and my cat is both. I got big, big laughs to read the dictionary definition, which gives an even better description of him:

rogueish;
scheming, tricky;
low, vile;
mischievous

New fox acquaintance

Photos from Forest Fox

A few nights ago, I was visited by a fox kit that was clearly from a different litter than the gang I've been watching -- noticeably younger, still with the extra-enormous ears, and her markings not developed. She let me feed her for about 20 minutes which melted my heart into a puddle.

But yesterday I met yet another very young one. He came waltzing around an hour before sunset! He, too, seems to have started to understand the Food Woman legend. But I'm not sure whether he's a sibling. He seems smaller than the other one, yet is developing clear markings. He has the lovely black stockings, and the white tip on his tail, though his redness has not developed yet. Mysteries. I love it.
[Note, 20:12 -- Rika, who lives just south of me and overlooks the "fish and bowl" where the foxes play, saw today one group with a mother and four babies, and a separate group of two little ones. Looks like two litters in all.]

I found a nice site about foxes:
http://www.foxforest.com/
One of the best features of this site is Voices Carry, which gives you actual recorded sounds of foxes vocalizing.

The first time I met a fox up close was about 3-4 years ago. Pícaro was out for the night, as was his wont in those days, and at 2 a.m. I heard the worst imaginable sound. I leaped out of the loft, instantly awake, and raced to the seaward door. I was sure that Píc was being disemboweled by a coyote. In fact, he was in a nose to nose standoff with a fox, and the fox was the one making the horrible noise. You can hear almost exactly what I heard if you listen to "Fox in distress." "  Squabble" is also quite similar.

The "Territorial response," by the way, is something that frequently goes on all night. In real life, it sounds like a human child is being tortured. Most unsettling.

Just like her Auntie

Gina with friend.  This is a girl after my own heart.

Origami: O good golly!

I thought I'd seen the most fantabulous origami, but this stuff is amazing.  Check out CONTEMPORARY ORIGAMI by HOJYO Takashi for more amazing creations.

[Contributed by Malia]

Gorky: Pleasure vs. Slavery

When work is a pleasure, life is a joy!  When work is a duty, life is slavery.

      -- Maxim Gorky, author (1868-1936)