The Customer is Always Right

Customer Service Wall of FAME:
Southwest Airlines!!! The boys were scheduled to fly out of BWI tomorrow for a weekend in NH. Jake's championship baseball game has been scheduled for tomorrow night.

One QUICK phone call to Southwest and they're re-booked. PLUS the agent told me about $18 I could save (the website doesn't offer child discounts) as long as I was OK with not checking in on-line (no need, families with kids 4 and under preboard anyway.) So I changed my flights and payed LESS!

Customer Service Wall of Shame entry #1:

Adelphia Cable. Overcharges us $174 every month, requiring that I spend 45 minutes on the phone with them. I guess they just like to talk to me. I'm currently investigating DSL/Dish TV.

Customer Service Wall of Shame entry #2:

Medtronic. Shipped my supplies to my old address, 500 miles away, three times in a row. Billed me at that old address as well. Now they have me on 'credit lock' for not paying bills I never received. Bills that were not sent in a timely fashion, and could not be submitted for FSA reimbursement in a year that I forfeited money. I called to request an adjustment a month ago and no one has called back. Did I mention customer service was a factor in my most recent pump purchase?

A newly discovered challenge

I consider myself to be well versed in the challenges that people with diabetes face while juggling their self care and the care of their family.

Tonight, though, I came across a new one.

How do you tell the difference between a low blood sugar and the adrenaline rush/stress/excitement of a little league playoff game???

Our Red Sox had their first playoff game tonight. We gave up two runs in the top of the first and then went 3-up 3-down. Not a good omen.

We held our own through the second and third, and found our rhythm in the fourth to pull ahead 8-5. After a big big controversy over game length (time had expired but the promised 5 innings had not been played) and a fifth inning that didn't count (to allow the other team to play all of their players), we walked away with a win and a spot in the big championship game.

I must have tested 5 times. I was convinced that I was low while chasing Ryan, or when my stomach dropped in reaction to a tense play.

I wasn't low, I wasn't dropping, in fact I was creeping up. But giving the amount of pacing I was doing, I opted to wait to correct.

Who knew parenting a little leaguer could have such an effect!

Go Sox

When I was pregnant with my first child, I decided I wanted to name him Jacob. My husband was not that enthusiastic about the name "Jacob".

To convince him, I told him to close his eyes and use his imagination as I said (in my best Bawston accent), "Now pitching for the Boston Red Sox, Jake Pahhmah."

He was instantly sold.

Flash forward nine years, and we come to the Parks & Rec '06 baseball season. John coaches Jake's team. At the coaches meeting, when he found out we'd be the Minnesota Twins, he pulled the sports director aside and asked if it was too late to switch that to the Red Sox. No problem, Coach Palmer, we can do that.

Jake wanted to pitch. This made me nervous, especially after the first practice, when Jake struggled on the mound and verbally beat himself up on the ride home ("I'm the worst pitcher ever!"). But he stuck it out and has done a solid job. He's only hit one batter (fantastic for this level!), racked up a few strikeouts, and stuck out at least one very very long inning full of walks. I'm so proud of him

Below, for your entertainment, "Now pitching for the Red Sox, Jake Palmer"...

Explicame, por favor

Invade Iraq. Kill their soldiers and ours. Kill their civilians. All in the name of protecting us from a potential threat. This was, according to our 'leaders', the right thing to do.

Acquire and use the stem cells of embryos that will never be born. All in the name of saving lives and defending ourselves against actual illnesses. This is "crossing a line".

I just don't get it, (not my) President Bush.

You Go Girl

There's an interesting article in today's Boston Globe about women bloggers

In particular, I loved the summary. It really hit the nail on the head for me:

Blogs have helped women to find their voices. Some of them find their voice 15 minutes at a time, which is why Lisa Williams said it's a perfect medium for multitasking parents. Many women talk about how they see their lives as markedly different pre- and post-blog. The biggest benefits -- relationships, community -- can't be quantified.

Eighty-year-old Garfield, one of the Internet's oldest bloggers, according to the Ageless Project, a site dedicated to proving the point that people of all ages are on the Web, sums it up:

``On my blog, people listen to me and they really get to know me."

She observed that in regular conversation, someone else is always trying to talk.

``But on my blog I can finish my thought. And I've discovered I have a sense of humor."

Ten Reasons why I despise the "Should People with Diabetes have Kids" debate

I made the mistake of reading the "Cheating Destiny" discussion at http://www.islet.org/forum/wwwboard.htm . I'm a little worked up, to say the least. So here are ten thoughts that went through my mind as I read.

10. I have kids. I bristle at being called selfish and immoral for having them.

9. It's a slippery slope. To say that people who know they RISK passing on a gene that MIGHT result in a chronic illness should not procreate is to say that NO ONE should have children.

8. Stopping people who have diabetes from having children will NOT eliminate diabetes! Neither of my parents have diabetes, nor is there any history of it in my family... so where did it come from!? Should ALL people with a history of an inheritable disease be discouraged from having children? Is there anyone genetically worthy of the honor of procreating?

7. Hearing people with diabetes who have decided not to have children because they would never pass such an awful condition onto their kids makes me SAD. I know I've been lucky with my diabetes, I know that there are people who suffer greatly, but it makes me sad to hear life with diabetes characterized as not worth it. They would honestly rather that they had never been born!

6. It is SO CRUEL to parents of children with diabetes. To tell them that their child's diagnosis is a TRAGEDY and to imply that their children should not have been born, it's nauseating.

5. The moment you apply the logic to other populations, it gets UGLY. Try it. Replace 'diabetes' with 'poverty-stricken' or 'history of cancer'.

4. It smacks of striving for genetic perfection. That's familiar, eh?

3. One person argued that we people with type 1 should be dead before we get the chance to procreate (if not for the insulin that keeps us alive). Well then, should we stop treating the flu in children? I mean, following that logic, only those hearty enough to survive *all* illnesses should be granted the privelege of parenthood. We're defeating natural selection with all this LIVING and Surviving we're doing.

2. The argument is based on faulty data and personal experience with diabetes. You cannot apply that to the population in general. It's like saying that no one should get married because your marriage sucked and the rate of divorce is high.

1. IT DENIES HOPE AND FAITH AND JOY and assumes that an imperfect life is a life not worth living. And that is perhaps the saddest thing I've ever heard.

A New Person

Sort of. My goodness, I was tired! But I managed a decent night's sleep last night, despite the fact that I had trouble drifting off due to the news of a prowler in the neighborhood!

Apparently, someone was swiping stuff from (unlocked) cars. The woman who lives in the townhouse four down from me was home alone with her two young kids and happened to go downstairs to grab her purse at about midnight. She spotted the guy crawling up her driveway. He tapped on the window by her door and pointed a flashlight into the hallway. She (Marine, MP, wife of cop) was pressed against the door the whole time.

She nailed him with a paint gun. She's insane. But I like that about her.

So, every tap on the roof gave me a little start. But soon enough, I drifted off.

And today, I don't hate the world. Amazing what 7 hours of snooze time will do for you.

But I still don't have much to say, so here it is, as promised, the latest installment of Book Spotting:

I'm not sleeping, just resting my eyes.

Sleep? SLEEP? WHO NEEDS SLEEP?

I laugh at sleep. HA. HAHA. I laugh in its face.

Only wimps need sleep. We who are made of heartier stock, we exist on 4 hours, MAX. Or maybe a few two hour spurts between bouts of attending to the needs of my family (stomach bugs. pnuemonia. 'nuff said).

I have had two full nights' sleep in the last 10 or 11 days. But really, I'm fine. Don't you worry 'bout me. I am A O K. Back soon(ish) with more intelligent and/or intelligible posts. Barring that, I have the next installment in the "Famous people with Kassie's Book" photography exhibit.