Charter

How do I hate them? Let me count the ways, or the whys. Perhaps it was the time they disconnected our service because the automatic deduction of their bill from our credit card failed. You know how you get a new expiration date every two years? Well, that baffled Charter. Or may be it was when they cut off our service the second time AFTER we had corrected the information about our automatic deduction to our credit card. Or was it the fact that both times they tried to charge a reconnection fee even though it was their error that interrupted our service?

Perhaps it is the wasted Saturday mornings on speaker phone waiting for answers, or at the very least, a human voice.

It wasn't the hours our service was out during the Emmys last year--we don't care enough about them to mind that too much, though I did use that as a reason for not handing over our phone service. What would we have done with the time the Emmys were unavailable if we had also lost phone service, I ask you?

No, finally it is about a company that enjoys a virtual monopoly with lousy customer service and yet, does not seem to be able to run a business without going bankrupt.

Did I mention that my niece's husband was expecting to receive some $25,000 as the result of a suit regarding shady overtime practices that Charter recently lost? Hmmm, class action suit, loss, bankruptcy. Could there be a connection?

No, I am seeing things--must be time for a medication adjustment.

Community Supported Agriculture

We love to eat our veggies and we eat them all the time
So I signed up extra-early for our CSA on line.

It was then I saw the check box for a rebate on our dough,
A family health plan kick-back for two years in a row.

Imagine our excitement when we found out it was true.
A prize for buying local, green, and organic too!

But how to spend the windfall? For stimulate, we must.
Obama said we should and in the President we trust.

We thought about more veggies and decided we could not.
A body has it’s limits for kohlrabi and what not.

So, we visited our farmers and sought their sage advice.
What worthy thing could match our rebate with it’s price?

Dave pondered our dilemma as he poured another beer.
It was just the proper temperature, unpasteurized and clear.

Then Tom had an epiphany—he knew what he should do.
He researched all his options, and when that phase was through,

Informed me that that by end of March, and certainly no later,
We’d be toasting to our health from a brand new kegerator.

“It will pay for itself in no time—even faster if we drink more beer.”

CPAP

Everyone who has ever shared a bed or a wall with my husband knows he snores. Since that can sometimes be the symptom of somewhat serious issues, he had a screening in 2003 for sleep apnea. We never heard back, and when Tom asked, his doctor did not seem concerned. All good, right?

Fast forward to 2009. We were talking about the snoring and the screening, and decided it might be a good idea to take another look. "Hmmm," said the sleep study technician of the 2003 screening, "if we had seen this, we would have had you in here right away. You know Reggie White died of untreated sleep apnea. We'll want you in here for the full study."

So, last Sunday, Tom checked into Hotel Electrode. By 1am, his breathing had stopped long enough to kill a small mammal on a couple of occasions, so they slapped the CPAP mask on his face and wished him sweet dreams--REM dreams that is---something he had apparently been deprived of for a long while.

I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing--would it be like sleeping with a coma patient on a ventilator every night? You know the sound I mean--the whoosh thump of someone who is breathing by machine. Tom, on the other hand was elated. A surprising reaction for someone who would soon resemble a fighter pilot at the edge of the atmosphere as he tucked himself in. It was actually easier than I thought it would be and a little harder than Tom expected. The machine noise is more like distant surf and I lull myself to sleep every night by imagining I am at the beach. When the air escape valve is pointed at me, I simply modify the imaginary beach scene to include a stiff ocean breeze. Tom, on the other hand, was disconcerted by the "blowfish effect"--this is when he wakes up with his cheeks puffed out and dried into position. He is learning to keep his mouth shut with practice.

It is the daytime hours that make the minor discomforts worthwhile though. Both of us are experiencing better quality sleep without the snoring and gasping, and Tom has noticed that he has a lot more energy in the evenings. I have also noticed that he is--how to put this delicately?--less grumpy, cranky, ornery, well, you get the idea.

Sleep is such a mysterious state and it is not very well understood. What is clear is that if you don't get enough of the right kind, including REM sleep, it has bad effects on the body, and on other bodies in the vicinity of yours. In addition, if you stagger through life feeling like you have "iron poor blood," it may be oxygen poor brain cells instead. Not breathing is bad for your health (100% of doctors agree on this), but the solution is pretty simple. The mask is your friend.