Fun with Hammers

Image via Wikipedia

What a hammer may look like

It's random tales from the field time again, children.  Gather round.

The last time I was in Sudan (2008) I got really, really sick.  Flu with complications.  Wound up leaving our excavation site for about a week to go back to the capital in Khartoum to see a doctor and get meds and junk.  Got to feeling slightly better, didn't want to come home to Chicago, so went back out to the site.  Before you yell at me for the stupid, bear in mind it was January.  No one in their right mind would go back to Chicago in January if they could avoid it.

Anyway we got back and I was still weak and woozy as all hell.  The day after I got back, the rest of the team went on a day trip to visit some other sites, some of which I had seen before.  Having just done the 8 or so hour journey from Khartoum the day before I was like "y'all have fun now,  don't fall in any tombs."

So it was me and our cook, Hashem left at the house.  As an aside, Hashem is a genius.  My god that man can cook.  He made fried chicken!  In a dirt kitchen!  With just two propane burners!  And soup!  He spoke almost no English, but so what.  He would wipe the floor with that Colonel dude from Kentucky.  If he ever for some reason wants to move the the US I will be at whatever government office necessary waving my cane around and yelling about how we need his awesome cooking for the good of the nation.

Anyway, I had stayed in bed a little late that day until I felt like getting up.  Then I staggered over to the dining room part of the house to see if there was tea left in any of the carafes and maybe some packaged cookies or something.  Hashem sees me and conveys very clearly that no, skinny foreign woman who looks like she may pass out at any moment, you are eating real food.  Off he goes.

I take a seat in one of the plastic chairs and hang out, sort of idly watching flies get caught on the fly-tapes we have hanging from the ceiling.  (Remember the fly tape, it's important later.)

Hashem all squinty because some genius
thought staring into the sun
for photos was a good idea

Hashem returns with enough food to feed like 8 people.  I express appropriate awe/gratitude and start eating hoping I can at least manage to force down enough not to offend him. It was good, I just still felt like ass.  He wanders off again, probably to mix his 87 herbs and spices for his magical, magical fried chicken.

There is suddenly this awful, loud buzzing noise.  Enough that I jumped up and away from the fluorescent light we had for use at night even though it wasn't turned on.  Then I look at one of the fly tapes.  A small bird appears to be stuck in it.  On closer inspection, it turns out to be some sort of gargantuan bumble bee.  I'm thinking "Chainsaw Bee" is a good name.  It's stuck to the fly tape, but is so heavy it's pulled the thing down almost to the tabletop.  And it's pissed and sounding even more like a chainsaw.  And skeezing me out, big time.  And shaking and jerking on the fly tape threatening to pull it down and/or release the lifeless but still disgusting bodies of its predecessors. 

Pretty sure
it was about the size of a Space Bee

So, after rescuing my plate of food from possible contamination by the chainsaw bee, I look around for a way to kill it.  I was wearing flipflops.  No way.  All the books available 1) belonged to me and 2) would have been ruined by Chainsaw Bee guts.  Other options included plastic chairs,  plastic tables, or either of 2 laptops.  There was also the option of yelling for Hashem, but I didn't know the Arabic for "the sickly crazy foreigner is a chickenshit and there is a huge fucking Chainsaw Bee up in here."

Then I spotted a hammer.  Score!

At first I tried smacking it with the hammer while it was still on the dangling fly paper.  In retrospect, this is probably the most obvious evidence that I was still pretty unwell, because even I would ordinarily recognize that as a bad idea.

My feeble swipes at it finally knocked Chainsaw Bee to the ground however.  Victory was to be mine!

There I am, crouched on the ground with a good-sized hammer in my hand, raised over my head prepared to strike with a no doubt manic/feverish gleam in my eye when Hashem comes back.  He stopped and blinked.  I waved my free hand feebly and gestured at Chainsaw Bee.  He sort of nodded.  And went away.

I smashed the fuck out of Chainsaw Bee.


I considered finding Hashem and trying to explain but, again, wasn't sure how to express "I'm stupid and there was a bee" in either Arabic or pantomime without making myself look even crazier.

Instead, I finished my brunch.

The Joys of Bureacracy and Confusion

So after agonizing over it and talking about it and thinking about it and, and, and...  I've finally started the application process for Social Security Disability (hereafter SSDI). 
Some of you may be wondering why the hell I've done this now as I got a job in August.  While the job is nice, it is also exhausting to me.  I cannot work it full time.  I can't even work two days in a row without serious repercussions like needing to spend most of the next day or two in bed.  And this is not a difficult job.  At all.  My mental health has taken a distinct turn for the worse (not to crisis levels yet, but treading uncomfortably close) and I think it not unreasonable to suppose that some of it is because I can't quite cope with the "stress" of working.  While I can, and possibly will, adjust meds to see if there's an improvement, I have noticed that the weeks when I'm not scheduled so frequently I seem  to be less inclined to anxiety/depression crap.

Thus, I've had another wake-up call in terms of my limits.  I am not, by the Social Security Administration's guidelines "gainfully employed."  I'm not sure how much longer I can remain even sub-gainfully employed.  I've already had to ask to be excused filling-in for certain shifts because they are seriously detrimental to my health.  Anyway, I hope to keep working at least a shift or two a week for as long as possible.  But I also recognize that I don't know how long that will be. And as I've said before, I have to plan based on how I feel *now* not how I *might* feel in the future.  The way I feel now is that working just 16 hours a week at a sedentary, uncomplicated, quiet job is nearly overwhelming.  Ideally, in the future, I might be able to take advantage of the Ticket to Work program or successfully work from home in some way, or be healthy enough to work a 40 hour week.  Or hit the lottery.  Or something.  But now, not so much.

The initial step in the process was calling up Social Security and trying to fix my income statements for a few years when, for some reason, they have me as having received no income.  While I was never making a hell of a lot of money (because I had been in school full-time between the ages of 5 and 27), I *was* making some.  And paying taxes on it.  Dammit.  Anyway, they were very nice and helpful and hopefully that's fixed.

SSDI is in part based on work credits.  For every x amount of $ you make you get a credit.  I cannot, despite valiant effort, figure out if I have enough credits.  Some calculators say yes, others say no, there are weird exceptions to the rules based on age.  Buhhh.  Also, I resent the term "work credits" - I was "working" my ass off, I just wasn't getting paid for a lot of it.

So, I started my application.  Teh confused.  I haz it.  I think that may be the first test of disability.  If you are capable of filling everything out on your own correctly you clearly are not disabled.  So, I've let it sit for the past few days and started looking for assistance. 

The first agency (Allsup) would not take my case because I'm working, even though it's usually under 20 hours per week and my monthly income is well under the SSA cut-off.  If I quit my job they would review my case.  So, hell with that.

An old friend who happens to be a lawyer saw me moaning about the above on Twitter or Facebook or somewhere and sent me some helpful links.  So, I've been researching law firms.  I already have one scheduled to call me (tomorrow, hopefully) to discuss details, etc.
Here's the things I plan to ask about.  If anyone has helpful suggestions, they'll be well appreciated.

• Fees - by law they're supposed to only be able to claim a certain % of the back-pay or a set $ amount and only if they win.  No win, no money.  I want to be sure they know this or else I will run away.
• What about the work credit situation?
• Should I continue the application I started on-line?  If so, precisely what information should I include and how?
• How much and what am I expected to do?
• What is their success rate?
• If they won't take my case can they refer me to someone who might be able to?
• If they won't take my case is it because they know it won't succeed or is it just because it will be too challenging?

Gahhhhh!

My latest amigurumi is driving me batty.  And I can't even complain about it properly here because it will ruin the surprise for the recipient.  Suffice to say I'm having troubles even though I've been following the directions.  Clothing is too big.  Other details are challenging to make.  I feel like crap and my brain is extra foggy, so that adds extra fun.  It's probably a good thing you can't really stab anything with a crochet hook or there would be even more trouble.

On the brighter side, I'm really enjoying Remember the Milk so far.  I'll try to remember to write up a more detailed review later on when I've used it a bit longer, but so far, so good.  I especially like the ease of setting up recurring tasks without having to assign a time.  This might not seems such a big deal, but for me, with a very fluid schedule based on health and sleep cycle, it is very, very handy.  And it really has helped me in remembering chores.

:P