THANKS, US Concordia!

Whelp, looks as though Larry and I no longer have to argue over those rugs! It turns out, according to the friendly ladies at my dental practice, that my dental insurance is now a piece of crap. The company left the Dental Health Alliance last year (unbeknownst to us), because it wanted to decide for itself what the allowable charges for standard dental procedures should be. And then pay 40% of THAT, instead of 40% of what they actually cost.

The upshot being, my new crown and filling will cost me over $1400 out of pocket . My insurance company? It's shelling out a whopping $380.  That's 27%, folks. I feel so ripped off. And stupid.

So, yeah, new rugs for the family room will have to wait.

But no matter, there's no room for rugs in the family room right now, anyway. Theo came home from the Army last Wednesday, with all his stuff. Anna (our newly minted college graduate) has been delivering her things here daily, as her lease is up tomorrow. Remember this picture?

It was beautiful while it lasted.

It doesn't look like that anymore. Not even close. There are bikes parked in front of the fireplace, boxes and rubbermaid containers EVERYWHERE, and we have to climb over things to get to the couch and TV. In other words, we seem to be back to normal down there.

Sigh.

In other news, it keeps raining here. Normally, I would mind; but every day it rains is one more day I don't have to humiliate myself by wearing a bathing suit in public. So I'm sort of at peace with the inordinate amount of precipitation we've been receiving, is what I'm saying. Silver lining and all that...

Tomorrow I can share pictures of the flowers Susie helped me pick out for the front porch and the back deck. I can tell you about Brian's exploding light fixture and Susie's abominable table manners. Not tonight, though, because I have to get to sleep. Tomorrow is a driving day. And we all know how much I LOVE driving.

Stalemate

Okay, something pretty momentous happened in The More, The Messier household yesterday evening. For the first time in over 2 decades, I cooked a lentil dish that received - I kid you not - rave reviews. EVERYONE ate it. And today, for lunch? Unbidden, they ate the leftovers.

In other news, hell has indeed frozen over.

So there you go - anything can happen. This opens up worlds of possibility, doesn't it? Maybe this means that I WILL someday find my waist again. Maybe my children WILL, at some point in their lives, learn to turn off lights and shut doors. Perhaps, even, SOME DAY, Larry and I will manage to agree on area rugs for the newly renovated (hardwood floors!) basement family room.

Actually, that last one? No. No, we will not. Folks, after 26 years of marriage - 26 years of raising children, living together, learning to agree to disagree - we may have finally met our Waterloo.

You see, we need one of the rugs for what we call the fireplace room, which will have some blonde-wood bookcases against the walls, a reading chair or two, the white-brick fireplace, and a large central area left open -- for children to sit and play games on, etc. Hence, the requirement for some comfortable floor covering.

See? NEEDS RUG. Preferably a colorful one...

Now, I have envisioned our walk-out basement family room(s) as an airy, modern-looking space, designed for both TV watching and play. Brian (who actually cares about such things) has even weighed in on the style couch we will eventually (when we win the lottery) buy: a light-colored one with clean lines, modular and up-to-date (as opposed to the dark brown reclining behemoth I dragged home from a neighborhood yard sale a few years ago). We picked a striking color for the walls, to make the white brick hearth pop.

I had a plan, people. And all it would need for completion was a modern, low-pile area rug, with contemporary/geometric design and some color. I spent several hours online, finally spotting a number of reasonably priced possibilities on Wayfair.com. Wanting to achieve consensus, I put several of them on my wish list so Larry could weigh in on the decision.

Susie's FAVORITE

And this, friends, is where it all fell apart. When I showed Larry what the kids and I had put on the list, he looked -- in a word -- disgusted. It wasn't just a "Oh, how about a different shade of color?" look. Rather, it was a look that almost screamed, "Who are you and how did you get into my house with your perverse home decorating ideas?" Seriously, he couldn't have appeared more put off had I showed him carpets screenprinted with naked Playboy bunnies.

So, yeah, this problem isn't going to be solved any time soon, I'm thinking...but, hey, I guess there's always hope. After all, he DID eat that lentil soup.

Fashion Alert 2017

Bad news on the fashion front, folks! I mean, not as bad as the (thankfully) short-lived bubble shorts phenomenon, but still...it's bad. Look over there to the right (I mean, if you're reading this on desktop - I have no idea where the pictures show up if you're reading this on your phone) - see that shirt? See the problem?

If you don't, you probably aren't short and round. BANDED BOTTOMS, people. Shirts with banded bottom hems are coming back in style. Go on, ladies, emphasize that post-menopausal Buddha belly with a garment that makes it look even rounder!

Good Lord, what's next? The return of Oxford button-down shirts for women? I mean, I sure miss having to check to see if all those buttons stayed closed, don't you?

IMO, the fashion world hates short busty women. HATES.

Stepping It Up

My present from Anna

Have we talked about Mother's Day yet? No? Well, then, let's do that.

Happily, Larry has learned over the years that the Amazon wish list titled "Gifts for Karen" is a pretty good place to discover what I might actually want for a present. So this year he gave me a new Fitbit, because I lost my Fitbit Zip in Salt Lake City.

Which reminds me, I still haven't talked about our two days in Salt Lake City. I sort of skipped over it and meant to get back to it, but I worried that writing even one more post about that train trip might lose me the few dedicated readers I still have.

Anyway, I didn't notice the Fitbit was missing until I was on the train heading to California, so I have no idea where it went. I had planned to replace it with another Zip, but in a burst of whimsy I put the Fitbit Alta on the wish list instead and left it there, while I was trying to rationalize the extra expense.

So Larry saw it and bought it for Mother's Day. It is the prettiest little thing (which you probably can't tell from this lousy photo I took). It buzzes at me when I sit for too long. It does a little Fitbit cheer when I reach my step goal. It tells me my heart rate. AND it tracks my sleep.

I'm gonna start offering photography classes

Let me say right here that I thought this sleep-tracking function was the most frivolous thing ever. And I still think that. Yet, I love this particular feature beyond all reason. In fact, I've become obsessed. Did you know that 20% of your sleep should be deep, versus 25% REM? I'm nowhere near either of those targets, as I tend to spend most of the night in light sleep. No wonder my brain doesn't work right.

Of course, one reason for my sleep deficiencies might be a spouse who snores. I plan to put the Fitbit on Larry's wrist some night while he is asleep, to prove to him that he is waking himself up probably a hundred times a night and not realizing it. He refuses to believe me.

Technology is very useful in settling marital spats. Although I do feel bad, using the gift he gave me against him.

The other thing that happened on Mother's Day was Anna's graduation party. We were so busy getting ready for the party and then entertaining guests that, as the day wore on, the fact that it was Mother's Day sort of slipped my mind. So when David called in the late afternoon, I reacted as I always do: "What's wrong?" I demanded.

People, he NEVER calls.

When he didn't answer right away, I followed up with an almost frantic "Is everything all right?" Myriad possibilities were dashing through my head, because I'm good at catastrophizing like that.

"Well," my engineering offspring deadpanned, "I thought it was customary on Mother's Day to phone one's mother."

Hey, at least he knows I wasn't waiting around by the phone all day, right?

Time To Bug Out

Ah, it's that time of year when we struggle not to turn on the AC until June. Well, I struggle, anyway. The kids and Larry would gladly make this place a refrigerator from May 1 until October, because they don't understand the value of suffering. Or money.

And really, the heat's not bad, yet - but the humidity is rising. My science-y offspring tell me humidity has something to do with water vapor in the air, but you and I know the truth: it is all the devils in hell coming up here to suck the life force from our bodies.

And this spring? These life-sucking devils seem to have brought some friends.

CICADAS

Now, I already knew that our region experiences Brood X, which is this massive influx of cicadas every 17 years. The last event was 2004, and - as luck would have it - our family was living elsewhere that spring. We were tucked away safely north of this plague, in Rhode Island, while Larry went to the Naval War College. Every morning that spring, I woke up and thanked the powers that be that this was the year we were not living in what was apparently Cicada Central.

I called my friend back home at one point (because people still called more than texted back then) to ask if it were as bad as the Internet was making it look. "Hang on," she said. "Let me walk inside. I can't hear you above all the buzzing."

So, yeah, it was bad. At that point I made a vow NOT to be in our area during the spring of 2021, when this phenomenon would re-occur. I am not interested in masses of creepy bugs. I don't care how fascinating it is. They make me want to throw up.

Where am I going with this? Well, I was outside a few nights ago, talking to a neighbor in front of her house, and she pointed to the ground. "Look," she said. "There's another one."

"What is it?" I asked, in disgust, as this wet, slug-like creature oozed out of the dirt and started wobbling around on definitely not slug-like legs.

"Cicadas," she said. "They're coming up everywhere. It's driving the dog crazy."

That's right - here we are in 2017 and it appears a whole bunch of cicadas did not get the memo - you know, the one telling them to stay underground another 4 years, while I make travel plans? No one knows just how bad this influx will be or why exactly it is happening - not even all the science-y people who think that humidity is water vapor. All I know is that more and more cicadas and cicada shells are showing up everywhere, and it resembles nothing so much as an alien invasion from a planet populated with giant bugs.

If this gets any worse, I am so out of here. Anyone have a guest room? For two - Susie says she is coming with me.