My Weird Day

I was just trying to get to the dentist as usual, and now I have to watch Season 14 of So You Think You Can Dance.

I live north of Oakland now, but it's only like 30 minutes to my dentist who I started going to when I first lived in Oakland. I like taking BART (the local commuter train). Maybe 10 minutes before I need to leave Lan texts me to sign a document on a house we're selling, and I notice another document that needs signing from the title company. But that second document is asking for things I have no idea about. The lender? We paid cash. I push that off until I get back home.

I park in my usual spot at the station, but the north entrance has its roll-up security grille down with signs saying to go to the south entrance. I wonder, "Are they finally cracking down on the blatant turnstile jumpers by forcing people to go the the entrance where the one service agent has his kiosk?" When I each the south entrance signs say "Richmond Only": that is, I can currently only take a train north to the final station on the line. I can't get to Oakland from this station right now. 

I have to decide whether to drive directly or try another station. I think I've allocated enough time to get to the dentist maybe 15 minutes early, but now the clock is ticking. As I get to my car, a BART train pulls into the station from the north heading towards Oakland. I decide to try the next station.

I scurry down the side streets, but when I reach the next station, there is a north-bound train stopped a little beyond the platform and there are several ambulances in front of the station. Time to get on the freeway and drive to the dentist.

Traffic on 80 is always a crapshoot. I do hit a slowdown at the 580 merge, but things start clearing from there. The elevator is down in the dentist building, but they're only on the third floor and so I always take the stairs anyway. I'm signed in ten minutes before the appointment time.

Lan calls in the middle of the cleaning. According to her memory we should have $6000 in our Health Savings Account, and so we should use that to pay the dentist today. I tell her I'm in the chair, but when I'm done I call her back and hand her on the phone to the office manager. Our access card to that account is expired, but the manager is fine with our sorting that out and paying later.

When I get home, I start digging into the HSA. The old one that we have not used in years has been sold to a new one in January. I sign in successfully to the old account which has the records and the new one. The current balance is $72 and change. I slowly go through some of the old statements and it seems that the account was mostly drained by the end of 2020. I call Lan and leave a message about the HSA and the forms from the title company.

Lan shows up at 2:00, and we start going through all the things. Lan's worried that a new HSA card went to our old address and that the person there has been draining our HSA. We dive into the old statements and $469 per month were being billed against the account after we moved. There was a customer service number for those debits, and so we call the number. We have no idea what company we are calling. We manage to convince the very confused phone rep that we were customers, and he finally reveals ... we had wisely used up the money in the account for health insurance before we qualified for Medi-Cal. One emergency down.

Lan grinds her way through the title company forms, and we successfully submit the signed documents. Yay! And then she's off to another appointment.

I can finally catch up on the email chain for Carrie's memorial service in April. Everyone we've reached out to has responded and the final bunch who will be renting a house in Mesa for two nights has been determined: Carl, John, Kathy, Lisa, Kat and me. Wait. Who the heck is Kat?

I dive into Facebook. From our mutuals it does seem she is part of my high school class, but I have no memory of her, like, at all. But her profile reads "Supervising Casting Director at So You Think You Can Dance". I dive into IMDB. She had that role for one season of SYTYCD, and two seasons of American Idol. I think I stopped watching both before all those seasons. Well, that's awkward. I guess I'll have to ask how she got into casting. But did I know her in high school? Where did I put my yearbooks?

I dig three of the yearbooks out of a box. Carrie, Kathy, Lisa, and Kat were all on the marching band's tall flag team. I can't remember ever speaking to her. Kathy and Lisa were honors students and in most of my classes. Carrie was Mike's girlfriend, and Mike was a fellow trombone player. 

Lisa smartly signed the shot of the marching band in our junior year yearbook. By graduation she was #1 in our class, and John and I tied for #3. She gave me my first kiss three years after we graduated.