Red Tape

 Tuesday, when I called the guy in charge of our insurance claim to tell him we had the car, that it was badly damaged, he immediately said, 'Let me get in touch with a local adjuster.' He assured us that he would have everything in place before we even got home. He said he wanted to get things settled for us as quickly as possible. 

Sounded good to us. 

This morning, we were trying to plan our day. I felt like we should wait to hear from the insurance guy. Tim, being Tim, had a tractor issue and needed to run into town. I decided to stay home and work on resolving the stolen plate issue. 

The first phone call was to DMV. Their automated system had no way to resolve that. 

I then called the state police. They told me about form MV-44 to replace the plate. I said that I couldn't really file for a replacement plate until I knew what the insurance was going to do with the vehicle. We might not need a replacement tag. 

He suggested calling our representative. I did. Her office assured me that I didn't need to worry about it. I said that I was not comfortable with that approach. Whoever had it was not honest. If they committed a crime... but the woman said, 'as soon as they run the plate, they will see that the tag does not belong to that vehicle.' 

Right...but the tag is still associated with our name and address. 

Boggles my mind that such a simple thing can't be done. 

In any case, it was 11. We still had no contact contact from the claims adjuster. So I tried to reach him, but got his voice mail once again. I left a message. 

I mean, what do you do? Just stay home until someone shows up?

I took my grumpy self outside and worked on weeding my poor flower garden. I weedwhacked for an hour. I planted 30 caladium along the north side of the house. I felt better.

I finally got a call back from Jason who was handling our claim. He was amazed we hadn't heard from the adjuster. He gave me his name and number. 

We know him.

I called and he was bemused. He knew nothing of our case. I said that he was supposed to have been emailed yesterday. He was driving, but pulled off the road to check. "Noooooooo," he said slowly. "Nothing yesterday...wait! Here it is. It just came in now."

Long story short, we are on his list for Friday. His appointments tomorrow are already in place.

Ugh. 

I went back outside to play in the dirt.

Remember those circling clouds that convinced Tim to put on pants? Turned out we had a tornado touchdown here in podunk. 

 https://www.weather.gov/ctp/Tornadoesof14June2026

Long Day.

 We went back to Canada today. The police were quite apologetic about the fact that no one reached out to us from their end. They did call our insurance guy. That is how we found out. The claims adjuster called us to call them and then call him back. 

We were afraid that it would take weeks of bullshitting around to get the car back. The impound guy could not even tell us whether there was damage or if it was drivable. 

There are some real peculiarities to this story that I am too tired to go into right now, but the computer/sat nav stuff has been ripped out. The windshield will need replaced. They backed into something.  Our license plate is gone (although the police officer noted that it was removed from the car and laying on the rear side passenger seat...)

The police released it to us, so I guess the investigative part is done. I can't tell you anything about that because the officer who should have called us but didn't is away on vacation.

The impound guy refused to let us take it out because there was no plate on it. We drove back to the police who called the impound people to say there should have been a plate, that the officer specifically said so, and pointed out that they were the authority not him. Then we drove 20 minutes back to the impound lot, where the guy released the car, writing on the paperwork that it was not to be driven.

You know, it is funny. I guess in the beginning maybe I was too surprised at the theft to be mad, but seeing that car totally ripped apart and our dirty laundry thrown everywhere, the car filthy with greasy hands, an unknown white liquid splashed everywhere...well...I am mad. 

Tim drove it home, despite Mr Impound's clearly written instructions not to drive it.  He was following me because I had the Sat Nav. At the border, I handed my license out, explained what had happened briefly and said that the vehicle behind me had no license plate and that Tim had the police documentation. She didn't even blink. She said that all she had to do was record the VIN for the Lexus. As if stuff like this happened every day.

That made me a little mad too. 

We are home now. Road weary and frazzled. We drove 3 hours with no plate on the car. Still amazes me. 

Insurance adjuster is coming to the house tomorrow.

My favorite shoes were in the back, believe it or not. 

The lines were snaked at the rental. Again. 3rd time in six weeks. I think we have a painful decision to make.

Totally burned out tonight.

Whiplash

The car has been seized. We know no more than that.

Another disaster.

Today after the protest, we moved our tenant's furniture back on the deck. We needed to pick up a half dozen things from the store. Then we headed home. Tim was tired so he undressed and went to bed. He took a long nap, and he needed it too.

When he got up, he was slow to rouse. Thank goodness our phones both started screaming. Weather alert: "Tornado warnings. Take cover immediately." Suddenly Tim was wide awake.

We studied the sky through the sliding glass doors, and the wind was wild. The big white pine was thrashing around. The thunder boomed. Strangely, I did not see any lightning. The clouds were that thick.

Tim said, "The clouds are moving in a circle! I haven't seen that before...." My phone rang. It was my youngest daughter. "Hey," I said, "can I call you back in say 10 or 15 minutes? We need to keep track of the weather, here."

Tim decided it was prudent to go get pants on at about the same time it began to pour. The wind had the rain falling just about any way but down.

And dang...all hell broke loose. 

Storm damage on top of the stolen car. It has been quite a brutal week.

LATE EDIT: JUST TO BE CLEAR, THIS WAS MEANT TO BE A JOKE. IT WAS A BAD ONE, I GUESS. WHILE OTHER AREAS DID SUFFER DAMAGE, THE TORNADO DID NOT TOUCH DOWN HERE. THE ONLY DAMAGE WE SUFFERED WAS AN OVERTURNED BENCH. MY APOLOGIES. 

The Dust Settles

As always, we are slowly moving past June 10th. We have both frozen our credit and taken care of the documentation for the stolen passports. We are wading through the insurance stuff. We will have to wait 30 days before the insurance company lists it as well and truly gone. 

It was a professional job. There is a professional network(s) at work. They utilize teenagers to steal the cars which are then driven to Quebec and loaded on a ship headed for west Africa. The number one target? Lexus RX models. (Number 2? Toyota Camry.)

As we slowly move through the morass of red tape associated with an event like this, little by little, life begins looking brighter. This is a survivable bump in the road, after all. 

Something that I have noticed is that Tim just expects that I will take care of the paperwork. He struggles with things like this. I understand why. I understand he can't help it. But the fact is, this stuff is stressful to me.

Something I have noticed is that he has become...um...demanding. Impatiently so. I am not the most patient person in the world, so I try to forgive that in him, but it has become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Yesterday we needed to go to the store. He needed his pop. He saw a rack of jeans on sale. We stopped to look. He did not find what he was looking for. 'Let's go,' he said. 

But they had a rack of tee-shirts marked down to a dollar and so I said, 'let me look through these...' He simply took off without me. 

My hearing is not so great and sometimes I don't hear him. If I ask him to repeat, he gets frustrated that I need to listen. But when I said that I was going to look at plants while he looked at deck stain and that I'd be right back, though he was looking right at me, when I came right back, he was no where to be found. I hadn't passed him between here and there. When I finally found him, he was irked. He couldn't hear me when I told him where I was going. "So why didn't you ask me to repeat myself?' He snapped, 'you need to speak up!'

A myriad of other frustrations. 'I will be back in 20 minutes and I want something to eat' is quite different from 'can you start supper?' 

An unexpected bill for $1400 that I was told would be covered by insurance wasn't. He is upset by that. He had been against the procedure, but it was important to me. In his mind, this was an unnecessary bill. I pointed out that he has just bought a tractor and spent $10,000. " 

Stupid stuff like me watching 'The Four Seasons". He didn't like it. Said all they do is talk. So we wound up watching "Yellowstone." Or when he is tired and just announces it is time for bed.or when I want to try ethnic food and he doesn't, why is it that we always wind up at Pizza Hut or McDonalds or Burger King?

All small and petty stuff. All of it, but it is just a stressful time for both of us and we both are snappier than usual.

This morning, I got up early to relax with my coffee. A few minutes later he came out. We have a tenant issue which he is upset about, and rightfully so. We have spent over $800 to snake out the sewer lines. This always happens of Friday afternoon, when we pay weekend fees for the plumber. It happened again. The other tenant in the house called to report. This time he said that he was told that the other tenant was flushing her cat litter when she did a full litter change on Friday. 

This required a direct discussion with the tenant, which upset her terribly. She has cognitive decline. We understand. I love that other tenants have gather about her to help her to continue to live independently. We will do our part too, of course. 

Tim and I discussed this this morning as I was trying to relax with my coffee and light blog reading. He wants to call her son and tell him she is not capable of living on her own. I think we have been very direct about it. She is upset. I think it may well not happen again. If it does, then we will rethink. This wait and see attitude made him mad.

Tim got snappish. "I am getting my shower and when I am done, you need to get yours. We have work to do." He decided that we were going to work on the old house before the protest. We already have a full schedule afterwards. We powerwashed a tenant's deck and today we are staining it. 

I said that he hadn't said anything about this. His response infuriated me. He said, "I didn't know what I would feel like doing."

I said, "How about what I feel like doing? Does that even matter anymore?"

 He glared and the floodgates opened. I yelled. He yelled. In the end, I said, "I am having a relaxing morning. It is the first time since we got home that we haven't had to hit the floor running. I am taking my morning. You feel like working, drive your truck to town."

And so he did.

I am sure this dust will settle too. 

Welp, Mrs Lincoln...

 ...other than that how did you like the play?

We had a very nice trip to Canada.

It ended early. Our car was stolen out of the hotel parking lot. The car was locked of course, but our passports were in the glove box. 

Also my favorite shoes were in the back.

Everyone has been kind and helpful. We are headed home now.

Now is later.

 We have not been to a protest for three weeks due to all the comings and goings, and a reception and family time. Tim said last night that we must go today. I agree. 

A funny thing happened this week. Tim had a serious craving for a banana split so we stopped at an ice cream place, pulling into a parking place next to a minivan with a VOTE! sticker on the window. The driver was waiting on her order, texting as she sat sideways in the driver seat, her feet sticking out the open car door. 

My initial impression was that she was a kindred soul, so I said, 'Not just 'vote' but vote blue!' and headed to the ice cream place. 

She shot out after me so fast that I initially thought I had misjudged. She wanted me to repeat myself. I did. The look on her face, people! She could not believe her ears, that I would just come out and say it. She is afraid to. 

I told her that she needed to find a group, that she wasn't the only one seeing it...more and more people are seeing it everyday. 'You can't see this as hopeless!' I said.

She agreed that it was changing, but was discouraged at how slowly it was happening. 

"Come protest with us! Find a group! You will be encouraged."

When her number was called, she got her food and passed by us. "Keep the faith, sister!" She smiled.

And I guess that is why we need to 'find our tribe'. That little exchange. It is too easy to fall into the hopeless thinking that we are the only ones who see what is happening as wrong. That the vast majority see nothing unusual about this at all. 

This is not true: It IS wrong. Most people DO see it. What we do with that knowledge is what separates us.

I am re-reading Elie Wiesel's 'Night'. What has struck me happens at the beginning of those terrible years. The Jews themselves tried to justify it, to normalize what was happening.

When the foreign Jews were loaded into trains to be deported, the Jews not taken comforted themselves: "It is not that bad. They were sent back to where they belonged." 

When Moishe Beadle escaped and came back to tell the story that all those people were forced to dig their own graves,  lined up at the edge of their grave and shot to death, his stories were dismissed as the stories of a crazy man.

As the government was replaced by pro Nazi officials, the same people told themselves that the Red Army was defeating Germany and that their authoritarian government would not last. 

When the Germans did march into town, they lodged with local families, even Jewish families. 'It is not that bad. They are behaving with courtesy.

When the synagogues were closed, they said 'It is okay...our Rabbis hold the services in their home'.

It went on and on. Jews could not own valuables. They buried them in their basement. 'We can survive this'. 

After all, the yellow stars did not kill them to wear.

Even the ghettos: 'We are together. We don't have to deal with the insults and cruelty of outsiders.'

And it went on and on, that normalization, the comforting. 'It's not that bad', except that it eventually did get 'that bad'.

Like Moishe Beadle, many of us are sounding the alarm. We are surrounded by people who dismiss all of it as 'it's not that bad. These people are crazy.'

In the end, I suppose, it comes down to this: we are all seeing the events of these days. Each one of us, even MAGA, sees things that should not be happening. The question becomes simple. What are we going to do with that knowledge? 

You are free 'to do you'. As for me and my house, we will 'do us'. That includes being vocal enough that if a doubter stands on the sidelines, they know who we are. Easier to find us.

It has been a quiet week. I have been earnestly weedwhacking, trying to bring this wildness to some semblance of order. Weeding flower beds, which to be fair, are two chaotic spaces where I tossed distressed plants bought on clearance last year. I figured that if they grew, I could sort them out and replant them later. Now is the 'later', I guess.

Monday, we head for our Canadian vacation. 

you know, I cannot post pictures right now. I have many things to show you. Right now, though, I need to get ready to protest.