Rachel Nabors

12:58 pm: I have a fishy bishy.
Since the death of my beloved budgie, Tenno, I have decided to buy a betta. The ensuing Quest for Betta has done much to take my mind off the sadness of losing my bird. I read all about them and bought a suitable aquarium (so inexpensive compared to a bird cage).

I couldn't decide whether to buy a Petco fish or order a fancy Black Orchid Crown Tail from Thailand ($15 for a pure bred fish sounds like a good deal to me, but the shipping does run about $50--so price was a drawback). Scroll down for video of the guy I wanted: http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?fwbettasct&1264926305

But since I have no intention of breeding (house too small, want to just have a pretty pet, 100 betta fry is way too much committment/water changing for me, yadda, yadda, yadda), I decided to start with a Petco betta (because I like their betta setup more than most other stores, and they had fancier/more exotic bettas than the one or two at the mom and pop fish store). This way, if I mess up and he dies, I won't be crying that I murdered a pure bred black orchid that cost me $50 to ship from Thailand. I still want a black orchid, though! Just after I'm sure I can keep a betta happy. Also, $50, ouch. Hope I can find an American breeder when the day comes.

So last night in the snow, I ran over to Petco and bought a delta tail with fins that look more like fabric than rays. Very frilly, very ostentatious. He has an iridescent steel-blue body and butterfly (I think that's what it is called) fin colors, being yellow fins with blue tips. He really is a looker. There were many sweeties to choose from, and I'd been looking at them all week, but he was the one who went absolutely crazy when I picked up his cup. I liked his vigor!

He is living in one of these, Tetra Water Wonders: http://www.amazon.com/Tetra-Water-Wonders-Gallon-Aquarium/dp/B00130JFPC

I think the filter is too strong. He hides under his java moss-covered coconut shell whenever I turn it on, and he seems to have trouble with both the suction and the current it produces. Can anyone recommend a better way to filter the water in this set up without overpowering the little guy? He is so very delicate with his ginormous, flimsy fins.

I haven't thought of what to name him yet. But it sure is nice having a little guy next to my desk again. My room feels less empty and lonely.

02:07 am: Good bye, sweet birdie.

Tennotaro, my curmudgeonly budgerigar sidekick of 8+ years, passed away today.

He'd been favoring his one foot Thursday night, so I put a heating pad on him. Friday night he had gone back to using his foot, but his appetite and droppings were off, so I gave him one of his favorite treats. Saturday morning he had eaten only half his treat (usually he stuffs his face on the whole thing) and was shivering, so I gave him another heating pad and a lamp.

I didn't want to rush him to the vet right away, as the trip is stressful on him. He's had relapses like this in the past, and usually a heat pad, some quiet, and his snacks were enough to get him back on track. But I noticed he wasn't resisting me much when I'd pick him up, not a Tenno-like trait. I mean if Tenno were a human, his catch phrase would be "piss off." He's a curmudgeon!

So I waited.

And as I was sitting at my desk watching Keeping Up Appearances, I heard fluttering. I peeked in his cage to find him on the grating, under his perch, as though he had fallen, his wings shaking uncontrollably. He looked surprised. I offered him my hand, and he accepted it. I put a heating pad in a plastic tub and sat him on it, coveringt the top with a towel. I couldn't trust him not to fall off his perch. By now I didn't think he'd make it through the night. I went downstairs to get him a papertowel to sit on so he wouldn't get his claws stuck on the heating pad cover, and when I came back with Joe, he was dead.

I'm glad I was there for him. It would have been rotten to come home from work one night to find him dead on the dirty grating under his perch, cold and splayed. I'm glad I was there for him.

My lovely husband rose to the occasion and helped bury the little bird when I was out of sorts. The rest of this weekend will consist of me sobbing and putting away his things.

I am going to miss him. My office is lonely now. God speed you, little boy sky king.

07:06 pm: New Years Eve 2009 Comic + awesome hair

RtG: New Years Eve 2009 by ~rachelthegreat on deviantART

Also: new hair for a new year!


Happy 2010 y'all! What're your goals? I'll be happy just to make it through surgery and make more comics!

03:52 pm: Jaw surgery update and semi-political ramblings
First off, many thanks to everyone who has donated money to help me get my jaw fixed. I was able to get braces earlier this year with $5k leftover to put toward the surgery, which is estimated to cost $15k.

I know I haven't been very active in comics or on livejournal lately. That's because I've been spending all my free time freelancing to earn money to put toward surgery. I don't really have much of a life outside my work right now. I do miss making comics. I miss my readers and the community. But I have to do this. Surgery has to happen in February/March.

The following is exactly why I had to quit comics: Young and Uninsured: Cartoonist Julia Wertz


My company changed insurers, which would be a good thing, but the company we switched to, Blue Cross Blue Shield, simply never covers orthognathic surgery (not much different from the old company!). I had a meeting with the representative when he came to talk to us at work. He told me that they won't help with hospital costs if they aren't helping with the surgery costs.

So let's have a look at where I am financially:
Including the $5k in donations, I have $13.5k of the $15k needed for surgery. However, the hospital costs could be from $10-15k. I won't know how much until after the fact. Even though I am still working and saving, I don't think I'll be able to pull that much out of the hat in two months. It's intimidating and has put me in a funk as of late.

I'm finding it exceedingly hard to be around certain types of people, mainly middle to upper management types who have the notion that you should be able to make a living by "doing nothing" or should be paid more to do what is already an overpaid monkey's job. Nothing enrages me more than Entitled White People. I have no sympathy for someone who doesn't have the excess they've become accustomed to.

I know I'm not as poorly off as I was two years ago. I have a real job working with people I like, and I can buy food and warm things to wear and sleep under. I have a house and a new car and a lovely husband who cooks delicious food (and whose Veteran's benefits allowed us to secure a loan for said house--more economical than paying rent!). I am very grateful for these things. And I hope I will never take them for granted. I feel very lucky to have the good things I have right now.

I saw the last Michael Moore move, Capitalism: A Love Story, with some coworkers. His films are always educational and entertaining, even if he is biased. I felt I learned a lot from it, and it did get me thinking. After the film, one of my coworkers said that he had been hoping for a revolution during the bailout discussions. He said he was disappointed that no one did anything. I asked him why he hadn't done anything himself. He said he had nothing to gain by it. "That's what everyone thinks," I said, "No matter how low on the totem pole, we all fear abandoning the scraps that we have. You could almost say that people like you are the real problem in this country." People who stare out the window wistfully thinking about change but not really doing anything about it.

When I get out of surgery, I want to take up fencing and run for a public office. Any office you think I would be suited to?

Tags: teeth

08:14 pm: iphone blues
I've been working on a mobile site for my company, and that means lots of reading books and lots of testing the site in various mobile browsers. Of course, I own a little pay-as-you-go phone that I don't connect to the internet with, so testing has been difficult. Especially for the iphone.

The only iphone emulator that actually works and is fairly accurate only works on Macs, and I don't have one. So I am reduced to poking at site's through devices I borrow from my coworkers. That's not really developer-friendly.

So I considered that maybe I should by one for development and educational purposes. I looked at what Joe and I pay every month and I did the figures... On a shared plan with me owning an iphone and him on just any old thing (an extra iphone means an additional $30 a month in data plans), it would be $90 a month, which for a couple who spend maybe $50 on their phones each month, it does seem a tad steep. That's an additional $30 a month plus the cost of new devices and connection fees, something an already strained budget no likey. Tack on an extra $60 if he wants an iphone, too.

So a testing device is out of the picture for me, even though I feel I need to be scoping out the mobile web more than ever.

The part that kicks me in the shins the hardest is that in all the mobile books I read, as soon as the authors get to the iphone, they state that it is "revolutionary" and then wax rhapsodic about how Apple revolutionized computers ten years ago and what will Apple revolutionize next... Once they are done licking Steve Jobs's face, they get back to the original aim of that chapter.

But it's not going to be revolutionary if only well-to-do people can afford it. It was only when computers became cheap enough that everyone could own one that things started changing. So I think it's inaccurate to say such things. The concept might be a good one, but it takes mass implementation to be revolutionary.


Edit: Upon writing this, it occurred to me that we could further reduce the household phoen bill to $32 a month by switching Joe to pay-as-you-go. Hot damn!

06:14 pm: smart car Halloween Special
The bulk of my Halloween postage is up on my smart car blog:
http://lovemysmartcar.com/2009/its-a-martha-stewart-halloween-smart-car/

There are pictures of my smart car in her devil costume, me in my kitty costume, a DIY guide to making a Halloween wreath, and more!

Please enjoy.

I'm actually sitting this Halloween out. I'm too tired to be the Crow Goddess of Awesome. I just want to hide under the comforter and sleep. I've been working super late on projects to earn extra cash toward my upcoming surgery. Fingers crossed!

Tags: halloween

09:59 pm: Dead Space: Extraction Review (plus how to kill the tentacle boss at the end)
I've been sick since... Saturday morning. My employer tried to insist I take time off, but we've got a big release coming up, and I wanted to get it out the door ASAP since most of it is my work, stripping down the junked up old code into shiny, lean semantic stuff, cutting our bit-weight by 25%--that's a lot of bandwidth for us. A lot. So yes, very important to me personally and the company as a whole. "Like hell I'm taking sick days!" I said, and proceeded to work from home for the entire week under the influence of a fever. Surprisingly, I'm still pretty productive in that state.

But anyway, with all that commuting time I've been saving, I've been playing Dead Space: Extraction for the Wii, which Joe bought to play with his friend Ben over the weekend. I, loving horror and loving to watch Joe play games, was delighted. Until he stopped playing to do house-related stuff. I got tired of waiting for him to get back to playing so I could watch the horror movie unfold, and decided to try playing a scary game by myself for once.

Either the game went easy on me or I'm better at dismembering zombies than I thought. The boys were having trouble with it, but that could easily be a side effect of the alcohol involved... Well, whatever the case, the hard part for me wasn't dying. No, it was being scared to death! I rarely died playing the game, but it got my adrenaline going.

See, Dead Space: Extraction is a rail shooter, meaning you're pulled along through a story rather than having free range all over the place. You go where the camera wants you to go. And the people at Visceral used this to great effect.

I'm a story lover, too. I don't get off on action action action. I need some mystery, some terror, some unspeakable dark somethings hiding in a closet. Otherwise, I get detached from the violence and gore and it gets boring. Dead Space: Extraction has a lot of plot fueling the backstory, and you'll find yourself asking, "Okay, then what happened?" as things are revealed.

So I liked it.

And if you want to know how to kill the final boss, it took me two or three tries, but I figured it out: take a pulse rifle and the line gun and a weapon of choice. Use your pulse rifle on the yellow ball when it appears (and you'll know it when you see it), hit everything else yellow with your standard rivet gun, and sweep the underlings with the line gun. You're good to go.

11:44 am: I'm so tired. I wish for fall in the forest.
I haven't slept enough for the past two weeks. Sleeping in this morning felt heavenly.

I really wish I could travel back to my mom's home in the mountains this weekend, but everything is still in boxes, and my closet and bathroom are wrecks. Plus, I am poor from all the moving. Not that visiting the mountains is expensive, but tight finances tend to make me feel less like travel.

I really wanted to go home at least one weekend this month, but I think this is my only free weekend, as after this, it's all parties and Halloween from here on out.

I just want to flop down in a field of long, dry grass with my dog and nap as the autumnal sun swings low and the cardinals sing high.

12:00 pm: I keep getting sick.
Last Tuesday I had to stay home from work after staying up late painting in closets made me nauseated. And this morning, although all I painted yesterday was my chalkboard accent wall of awesome, I woke up unable to focus my eyes, with hot sticky skin and feeling like I wanted to vomit. I managed to stumble down the stairs and curl up on the couch where Joe tucked me in. After a nap, I feel a lot better. I wish I knew why I felt so awful this morning. I haven't ben marathon painting since Wednesday. What gives?

Since I can't organize my office as long as the accent wall and trim remain unpainted, I'm going to focus on my closets today. I am deeply excited about buying a $10 slide-out tie rack for my scarves and belts. No longer will they pine for me from the depths of hat boxes, yearning for me to remember them. No, they shall be in full view and easy reach at all times, YES!

12:52 am: New house; No office; 24 Hour Comics Day Cometh
We've moved into the house. I'm so glad I stayed up till midnight, 2, even 4 in the morning to finish painting our bedroom and my home office. Sadly, I was unable to finish my home office before moving, for no matter how fast I painted, the chalkboard paint for my accent wall demands 24 hours of drying time. I will finish trimming the room on Monday and then, THEN I can finally start putting the room to right.

Wow. My first house. Without Joe's VA loan, it woulda taken years for us to get a house. The house rocks. But I'm so tired. Two whole weeks of relentless painting. Urf.

And then Tessa reminds me that 24 Hour Comics Day is next weekend. Lately I've been down on myself for not comicking enough (major reasons for this are 1)working my ass off and 2)not having a site to upload anything quickly to). Part of me wants to do a comic, but I know I won't have a home office ready in time, nor do I have any friends planning to make a comic at the same time, so there's no one to do it with. Aww, so sad. Plus, I may just be freaking tired.

Which I am now. So off to bed. Just wanted to let you know where I am and why I've been so quiet!

09:20 am: Cartoonists on Health Care: Speak up
Check it out: http://blog.cagle.com/jones/2009/09/12/obama-health-care-and-me/

Confirms my suspicions that most full-time freelance artists get their insurance through a spouse.

02:59 am: Teh fumes eated my brain
We closed on the house on the 10th. I tidied up all my personal projects prior to closing braced for it: nonstop painting.

Joe is working on fixing everything else that is wrong with the new house. My job is solely to paint our bedroom and my office. Oh, and their respective closets 'cuz Joe's smell like cat pee (need bleach, lots of bleach).

My mom would be proud of me, putting down drop cloths, scrambling up ladders, getting covered in white specs of primer. It took me all day to prime the bedroom. Even with the windows open and the fan on, the fumes get rough. Once you start priming, it's hard to find a stopping point to go eat, and I find myself falling over from time to time from low blood sugar. Joe brings me water to hydrate with, at least! Otherwise I'd dry up!

Joe is highly amused that I am also painting the ceilings. I know it's a lot of extra work, but everything in the house is beige with white trim because it was a rental. And I hate beige. A lot.

Knowing that a scruffy ceiling can completely destroy the effect of shiny fresh walls, I cannot leave them. Not even in the closets. Yes. I'm anal about these things. Painting those two rooms will be a total pain once we're moved in, so it's important that we do it right before we get the furniture in.

We don't have much cash left after closing, so we're not doing much renovating or updating. I'm glad we can do a little painting to spruce it up a bit! Because we probably won't have much for movers, we're hauling bits and pieces of things with us each time we drive over there to work. I plan to load my smart car Roxi up with books each night before work so I can drop them off on my way home. I have a lot of books. I hate having to move them all at once! But hopefully this way we can get it all down to just some random larger pieces and movers won't cost so much.

Lastly, Joe splurged and got me an ironing board that can fold into the wall. I've been wanting one forever! It has a mini-arm for ironing shirt cuffs, too. Now I'll be able to handle his dry cleaning, saving us even more money. Score! It'll pay for itself!

So yes. Painting. Painting all weekend.

01:16 am: Hard to Relate
I wish more people understood my Jaw Problem.

Since my Quest for a Jaw That Works began in March 2008 (with much thanks to my closest friends for pushing me and the charity along--I'm much too proud to have done this without much coaxing), I have had to relate so many people exactly why I'm on the phone with insurance in the parking lot shouting, or why I can't eat out with them because I'm saving pennies and packing my lunch, or why there's a great big charity fund on my site. I try to avoid talking about it because most people just don't get it.

It's hard to express to someone that you're saving, saving, saving because there's a surgery coming up that costs as much as their BMW. It's hard to explain that it's for something they can't see needs fixed. It's hard to tell your friends that you can't come out to play on the weekend because you've accepted a load of freelance work. It's hard to explain to your boss that you didn't really get a weekend, you just came home and went to work. And it's hard to explain to your fans why you haven't made a new comic in over a year because every spare moment you have is spent chasing the dollar, something you never ever wanted to do. It's hard to explain that you had to let go of doing something you loved and really felt good at because there was no way to get that money from the pay that comicking brought in.

I'm lucky to have a husband who supports me. I'm lucky to have friends who support me and push me so hard. I'm lucky to have a boss who understands my weekend freelancing. I'm lucky to have patient fans. I'm extremely lucky.

Most people I meet don't understand what I'm going through when they find out about it. They just sort of shrug and try to pretend it's not happening to me or occasionally swing the other way entirely and stop seeing me and start seeing My Problem like it's all there is to me, and oh how I don't want to be seen as a charity specimen. But some folks get it. Some of my coworkers, several web dev company execs I've known, and friends, of course. To them I am eternally grateful for making me feel accepted, acknowledged and cared for.

I was writing thank-you notes tonight. It gets me thinking. Thank you.

Tags: teeth

09:56 pm: New blog: lovemysmartcar.com

I'm sorry I've been missing in action lately. Last you heard, I up-and-got-married, didn't I? Well, there's a reason. Several. One of which was that my budgie Tenno got sick, and I had to rush him back and forth to the vet so they could operate on his little feeties and remove some abscesss. (Cause: his refusal to eat anything but millet. Still fighting to get him to eat something different.) And then of course there was a long letter I had to write to the insurance folks to tell them I damn well need jaw surgery and here's ten reasons why (which I might post later for funzies). But one of the most prominent reasons for my scarcity would be my latest pet project, lovemysmartcar.com.

I spent Labor Day weekend laboring to finish it. It's a site where I can blog obsessively about every little trip I take, playlist I create, picture I snap and maintenance I perform. I even made a playlist for you!

I built it partly because I couldn't find any smart car experience blogs when I was deciding which car to buy. I thought, "Wouldn't it be great if someone got a smart car, then blogged about what it was like driving up mountains, getting the tires changed for winter, what it feels like in a storm." Then I remembered, oh yeah! I make web sites!

The blog has been up for a few months now, mainly because I wanted to generate content and get it listed in search engines before I launched, so I opted for a "soft launch," focusing on getting the content and core functions together before slapping the design on and releasing it with a big fanfare.

Another reason for posting to a half-baked site was that half way through the design process, my bird got sick just as a really stupid picture started making the rounds on Twitter. People would tweet, "Can you spot the smart car?" and link to the picture which was of a car crushed between two trucks. It wasn't even a smart car, so I knew I had to use my powers for good and set the record straight. I posted a big-ass, Search engine optimized rebuttal and percolated it through Twitter. Soon it rose to the upper reaches of Google's search results on all things "smart car crash"-related and the site landed 2700 unique visitors in its first month as people searching for the truth found my post. A week after my posting, Snopes posted the truth and the matter was settled, the pictures stopped being circulated, and all was well in the land of smart cars. I won't make any cash from this. It's more of a showcase piece than anything, a proof of concept that shows I can do organic search engine optimization and reach an audience through social media. A big part of me just wanted to show that my skills could compliment a product line like the smart car. I really flexed my muscles on this one, and I am pleased with the results.

That said, I'm open to your opinions and critiques. I want to come back to this in a month and improve it even more after I see how people use it.

I'm taking a break from personal site projects to do some more commercial freelance work, paint our new house (Ah yes, news! We close on the 10th!), and draw more art cards for my corrective jaw surgery donators.

So please, tell me what you think?

Tags: smartcar

12:20 am: I have a husband!
Joe and I are married!

That's the new hubby and me after signing the papers at the magistrate's.

Of course, I'm keeping my last name because I already have a body of comic work and an award under it, but I did offer the Nabors family name to my sweetheart. He kindly declined and kept his own for similar reasons ;)

We'd been toying with the idea of eloping for some time. Recently we've been negotiating the purchase of a house (at least we'll be putting money into a piece of property instead of throwing it out the window on rent--it works out to be the same monthly payment). Also, with insurance refusing to chip in for my $20,000 jaw surgery, our financials were starting to get complicated. We were already married in every way but by the law, so there really was nothing stopping us, and marrying sooner rather than later would make buying a house and such a lot easier and safer.

But we wanted it to be a surprise!

We swore each other to secrecy and decided to run off and do it at the magistrate's office on the morning of August third. I ended up telling my mother (who would have been upset if I hadn't let her know before we got hitched) and one coworker who I thought I could trust to be quiet, but she told another coworker who was, of course, soon after sworn to secrecy (and to the young lady's credit, she kept it a secret!). They then tried to convince me to let them throw a party for me to make up for my lack of white chiffon wedding gown and ugly bridesmaid dresses, but I dug my heels in and refused. Eventually they came back with a girls' night out, and I thought that was great idea and invited Caitlin along (who was also sworn to secrecy). And that was Friday night's girls' night out! My coworkers generously gave me a bottle of champagne to share with my new husband after the blessed event, which was grand because I would have had no idea what kind to buy. All in all it was a lovely time with a bunch of lovely ladies, and I couldn't have been happier unless all my friends who live so far away had been able to come (Leigh, Lauren, Tessa...)

So there we were in the magistrate's office this morning, dingy and windowless as it was, and he told us we needed two witnesses. But we had packed everything but two witnesses!

What would we do? We went into town, looking for someone, anyone, but everything was closed on Mondays. Finally we asked some complete strangers in front of the jail/courthouse if they would help us out, and the ladies kindly acquiesced. We were to be wed after all! The day was saved!

There was a very hurried taking of vows so the women could get back to their affairs, followed by a stern lecture from the magistrate on the importance of changing my name through social security, if I wished it (in spite of my repeated denials that that would ever be the case--I guess he was trying to be safe!).

Then we came home, toppled over, and drank the bubbly, which made me a giggling fool for awhile! But I hydrated thoroughly and there will not be a hangover in the morning.

And that, my friends, was Rachel's Wedding Day!

Oh come now, I realize we still have to do something public. I must grab Joe's hand and claim him for my own in front of more than three strangers. So this October, before the Halloween parties start, we're going to have a Wedding Warming/House Reception party in our new home. We will be registered if people feel the need to bring gifts, but with the economy limping along like it is, we want guest to know that bringing nothing more than their delightful selves is enough for us! We'll do something public with exchanging our rings and making some statements of undying tenderness that will make everyone tear up or start laughing, or both, I'm sure.

Speaking of rings, I'm getting Joe a tungsten one he liked from an online store, and we left my engagement ring with the most awesome of jewlers in Chapel Hill. The man is like an alchemist! I wanted to have my wedding band made out of my engagement ring. It seemed the logical thing to do. I just wanted the setting lower so the diamond would not catch on my clothes and things. Later on, when money isn't so tight, I would like to add a band of rose gold to make the ring look sturdier and more like a wedding band.

Some day, we may do a formal ceremony on an anniversary. And next year we may make our honeymoon to Philadelphia happen. But this year, all the money that would go toward a wedding is going into a house or being hoarded for surgery. But I'm okay with it. Big weddings have always seemed as boring as school assemblies to me, and the stress of planning and performing in one would kill me. I never played "bride" with my Barbie doll.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are more important things than one day with a person when your whole life stretches out before you both. I had a blast with Joe today, and I hope we always will have this much fun, no matter what the Universe throws at us.

You can read more about the happy if not stealthy event at my husband's blog.

08:16 pm: Of Bumblefoot and Health Care Reform
Last night I had a real girls' night out with my coworkers Jenn and Krystal and my friend Caitlin. There were many tapas and drinks!

This morning I made a quick run to the vet. Tenno the budgie is sick again, now with bumble foot! The vet has him on antibiotics and pain killers. $200 because the little dude won't eat anything but millet (vitamin A deficiency contributes to immune deficiency and a poor diet may give him kidney disease and result in his needing to be put down if he starts getting uric acid deposits). So I spent the afternoon putting moleskin on his perches.

On the way home, I stopped by the library and picked up some books on CD, notably some sci-fi classics, "Tess of the D'urbervilles" and a music appreciation course.

Outside the library were two volunteers trying to collect signatures in support of Obama's health care reform to send to our representatives. I stopped to sign, filled out a postcard, grabbed and handful of postcards to give to other people, offered to volunteer, and most importantly, I got the email and mailing addresses of my state's representatives. I figure if I can spend so much time writing long, whiny blog posts about my need for surgery, I can write even longer, whinier letters to my representatives in congress and the senate.

So which do you think is better, email or snail mail?

04:02 pm: Only covered if...
"Orthognathic surgery is only covered on your policy if it is to correct acute obstructive sleep apnea, not related to TMJ."

That's a wall.

Tags: teeth

10:39 pm: The bad news: my insurance excludes orthognathic surgery.
Here it is all fast and furious:

1. I'm going to need upper jaw surgery to correct my painful crossbite.
2. I've already gotten the braces needed for the first stages of correction thanks to the lovely people who have been giving me money.
3. I need surgery in one year. One year.
4. The surgery involves cutting my upper jaw in three places and my lower jaw in one.
5. It will cost about $15,000 for the surgery with an additional $5,000 in hospital costs for a grand total of $20,000, plus or minus.
6. My insurance people wrote me back that "orthognathic surgery is excluded on your policy." The one I'm paying through my nose for.
7. Because it is excluded in the policy, there is no real way to argue with them further.
8. In short, I don't know how I will pay for this.
9. But I thank everyone for all their support, even through these horrid economical times. It means a lot to me and gives me hope.


I will post my next plan of action when I puzzle it out.

Tags: teeth

04:53 pm: I now have a smartcar and her name is Roxy.
I now have a smartcar and her name is Roxy.

10:57 pm: Smartcar names.
I need to name the car. So far everyone seems to think it's a girl, but I still think "Napolean" would be an awesome name.

Here are the girly girl names:

Bebe
Scarlet

You guys helped me come up with thepinkcrow.com's URL. Now sway me! Sway me, I beg of you! Either support one of the above or suggest something else. (By the way, I would have called her Bunny, but I had a bad experience with a girl by that name once.)

Also, please keep in mind that I'll probably end up accenting the car's white exterior with red reflective hearts cut out of reflective safety tape.

Tags: smartcar