rambling rosemarie

I found a receipt for my short hospital stay almost 53 years ago. It cost my parents $100.00 to get me out of hock..er out of the nursery and bring me home. I looked up the current costs and found that a baby is going to cost between $6000.00-16,000.00 now. It all depends on whether or not there is need for a C-section and if there are other complications. Thirty-five years ago my friend was without insurance when her son was born. She had the $25.00 a month plan and paid him off in full. Years ago people my age and older actually paid their medical bills like that and it worked. You knew it was your obligation and you paid. I just recently finished paying my portion of my hospital bills from last year. Even paying my 10% was difficult, but I got the job done. Earlier this month I had an MRI. I have insurance and my cost was about $43.00 which had to be paid before I had it done. Because I have insurance the MRI folks who normally charge $2525.00 for this test were willing to accept l...

Ever feel as if God is not going to cut you any slack? I do. I think that right now He is making things very uncomfortable for me in just about every area of my life. I have been off work since the end of August because I tripped in my own home, wrenched my back and hurt my neck. I flunked 3 MRI's because of being claustrophobic. I finally got through one and then it took 3 weeks for my doctor to be able to read the report. I have some severe damage going on in my cervical spine and I have been referred to a neurosurgeon. I have an infection in my eye. I have two different dental insurance benefits and neither one of them will pay for the cleaning I had six months ago. I had my teeth cleaned today and found out that I need a crown and not one, not two, but four fillings. I haven't had a filling in 10 years and suddenly I need four. They are so small that the dentist says we could watch them. Watch them what? Turn into big cavities that hurt? My short term disability insura...

April 14, 1989 I was driving home from a specialized training seminar in emergency management. Two of my co-workers were with me. Anxious to return home and avoid rush-hour traffic, we were making fairly good time traveling northbound on Hwy 101. We were tired of being away from our families and friends. Perhaps we were a little tired of each other, I don’t know. I don’t remember exactly why we were listening to the radio, but we were. A news story caught our attention and held it. There had been multiple homicides in our county and the suspect, Ramon Salcido, was being hunted by every law enforcement agency in California. I remember feeling sorry for the dispatchers, detectives and deputies that were working. Joseph Wambaugh once wrote that law enforcement consisted of “hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.” Working in public safety is akin to being on an adrenaline roller coaster and nothing got everyone’s adrenaline going more than a homicide. If I am to be ho...

My life is in need more than new material by Aaron Sorkin. I wish that a little cleverness and some great one-liners could make the sort of difference that might matter in my life. Imagine if sarcasm and wry humor could cure what ails me! I am really good at sarcasm. I know it's not that easy. I delude myself into thinking that there is some quick fix available for me if only I had the money to buy it or the ingenuity to create it. Perhaps what I need is the right person to care enough about me or the right doctor to prescribe the chemical balancing medication. While I am wishing, why not a fairy godmother to wave her magic wand and fix me or a lover to hold my hand in just the right manner. . . Anything but getting off my well cushioned backside and disciplining myself to change- especially if that discipline involves confessing that I am hopelessly unable and begging God to change me. I know it's the only efficacious way to change but I just can't want to do it. I am wan...

Mr. Sorkin, Please. Return to writing television programs. I am stuck at home with an injured neck and back and my activity level has been severely limited. I find myself sitting on my couch watching entirely too much television. Bad television. The highlight of my day? Watching reruns of The West Wing on Bravo. I need you to return to writing programs where the viewer is required a modicum of intelligence. I am on prescribed medications that render me sleepy and unable to operate heavy machinery, not stupid. Rescue me. Please. I repent for all the times I referred to West Wing as "The Left Wing." I apologize for every time I groaned at hearing the same lines in The West Wing that were used in the movie, The American President. I am truly sorry for using your name in vain when Studio 60 was canceled. It was a knee jerk reaction and not your fault. I know that now. However, as much as I regret my prior behavior, it is only fair to warn you that I cannot be plac...

My computer has crashed. I am using a 9 year old lap top that does get the job done, but I have difficulty typing on it for any length of time. I have almost got it set up to where I can use it and not want to have my hands fall off. I have so many little gadgets hooked into it, it looks like something from a science fiction novel. Or stranger still like I might be a super geek. Nothing could be further from the truth. This computer is so old it has a disc drive and I didn't even understand how to use that! Not being on the computer has been good for me. It's given me time to be pensive and reflect about the things in my life that are bugging me. Things that are hard to articulate. I think it centers on my mortality. We have such a brief time. We are less than a blip on the radar and we're gone before anyone realizes we were here. My sister has been dead for 19 years. That's nearly two decades. I remember parts of her so vividly and parts of her escape me c...

Sometimes God uses people you don't know to tell you things you need to know or you already know but you've forgotten to act upon. Today in a the chat channel I frequent, someone I love and trust put a link to a website up and said, "If you have not watched or listened to this, you must." He was so right. I hope that you will grab some tissues and sit and watch this video . I hope you will let this woman change your life, your priorities, and your relationship with God. Rachel Barkey is the type of woman I would like to be, but pray I will never have to become. My faithless, cowardly heart begs to be given an easier path. God has used her life to show me the shallowness in mine and to encourage me that it does not have to be this way. What a testimony of Christ in her life!