Since I'm still jobless, I was drafted to take the car to get fixed this morning. It needed an oil change and two lights replaced. I hate going to the garage, but this time it was relatively painless. The only thing that sucked was the fact that they couldn't fix the long-broken left turn signal. Something about a broken casing that needs fixing and they couldn't do it. Whatever.

I was having a pretty good day. Noodling around on the internet, puttering around the house doing this and that, choosing to put on a record (Quasi's "Featuring Birds" because she reminded me) instead of listening to the constant comforting babble of NPR. I was thinking about some of the things I could do with my day, considering the possibilities. The mail came. I shuffled through it, found the stuff with my name on it, opened it. Junk, mostly, except there at the bottom was a bill from the midwives' office. I glanced at it, figured I should call and clarify what it was for.

I spoke to a very nice lady in the billing department who explained that our insurance rejected our charge. What was the charge for? It was for listening to the baby's heartbeat. It was a $75.00 charge for them to use that thing that looks like a fancy stethoscope to listen to the heartbeat. It's called a doppler. "Well, that stinks," I told the nice lady. She agreed, and we had a little chuckle over the whole thing. I said thank you, hung up the phone, and well, hormones took over from there. I started crying, realizing that we might very well get charged $75.00 each month when we go to the midwives' office and hear the baby's heartbeat. For me, being paranoid and all, not getting to hear the heartbeat is not an option. It's the best part of the visit, really. I called C. I was upset. He worked his magic and told me not to worry about it. He's calling the insurance company and the hospital for me. Normally I would do this stuff myself, but truthfully, I had a feeling I'd find myself blubbering over the phone with some astonished insurance person on the other end, so I let him do it. Maybe cooler heads will prevail.

I read a book this weekend, called The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things by J.T. Leroy. It was even sadder than Lynda Barry's Cruddy, but I stuck with it. The Heart... is a really quick read, and it's amazingly well-written. But don't try it if you're feeling depressed. This book will not make you feel better.

This entry is officially too long. I will have to save the story of our Easter visit to the next door neighbors' house for another time. Believe me, it's completely worth the wait.