June 2007

By the long expressway camera of the law.

Highway speeds here are monitored by automatic camera, which snaps a photo of your front bumper if you pass a sensor going above the limit. Then, they attach it to a ticket (complete with chart for calculating the fine) and send it to you in the mail.

This is to avoid the, “It wasn’t me!” defense, though it sort of makes it look like the cops are informing us that our hatchback has been out carousing when we’re not looking. (”It’s 11 o’clock, do you know where your Kia is?”) You’ll notice they have a nice white box blocking out the view of the driver. I have blurred our license plate number but it’s clearly visible on the ticket and the picture.

I’m not real happy that Dave’s first reaction to this was: “Man! We need to get our GPS [software] updated!”

You know, because, clearly, the problem is that we don’t still know where all the cameras are, and not that “we” shouldn’t be driving so fast.

David and I are about to start childbirth preparation classes here next month, and we already have the book and accompanying CD. This is a good thing, it turns out, because I’m going to need those breathing exercises and calming meditations for a lot more than labor pains.

Case in point: Our Insurance Carrier Who Shall Remain Nameless (but whose name starts with a ‘C’ and rhymes with, um, let’s say, ‘Rig-na.’).

We started coverage under the international plan for expatriates in January, when we got this great booklet explaining our coverage, and our nifty little plastic membership cards. We read through them, coverage looks great. We have to submit our own claims, but we expected as much. To be honest, we didn’t think much about it again until last month (May) when we received another coverage booklet.

(Helpfully forwarded to us from our Atlanta P.O. box where it had been sent by his company. You know, if anyone were supposed to know that we actually live abroad and not at our U.S. address, you’d think it would be them, right? Alright, really, no major problem. Inhale, slooowly exhale.)

This little missive contained some information not mentioned the first time around. To wit: Routine hospital admissions must be pre-approved. For routine hospital admissions that are related to pregnancy, we should contact the health plan by the end of the third month. Right. Entering my seventh month here. That’s going to be complicated (OK, relax, there’s a website for more info. Inhale, exhale sloooowly…. Imagine you are sitting by a gently flowing stream, etc.)

So, OK. I visit the carrier website, click on the tab under member login and—wait for it!-–attempt to log in. To make a long story somewhat shorter, I’ll briefly summarize what followed.

• Receive automatically generated message saying that my information is invalid.
• Attempt to log in three more times. Double-checking info each time. Get locked out of system and receive automated message instructing me to try again in half an hour.
• Return three hours later to try again. Receive error message before I can even enter my information. Clear browser cache, try again. Same result. Restart computer. Same result. Wash, rinse, repeat over the next week.
• Give up and call customer service number. Wait through 20 minutes of a phone queue in the middle of the night (business hours in the States), listening to endless announcements that I would not need to wait if I would use the online website to access information.
• Finally reach end of automatic phone queue to hear another automated message informing me that the entire department is undergoing training that day and I will need to call again at another time. “Goodbye.” (Inhale. Hold breath. Exhale slooo-oooo-oow. ly. Force jaw to unclench. Think of puppies, kittens, little butterflies in a field ….)

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This morning, I  finally realized the pregnancy hormones were in full effect when I got all choked up over Judy Collins’ rendition of Both Sides Now playing on the sound system at the Itaewon Starbucks.

You know, because I never really knew clouds … at all.

It’s not like I have any kind of youthful memories attached to the song. It came out in 1967, four years before I was born. I still went through a Judy Collins phase in junior high, wearing out my parents’ old copy of Hard Times for Lovers, which is probably what left me near tears.

The things I put them through.

I had a truly bizarre taste in music until at least late high school.  In addition to the Judy phase, and my previously confessed dalliance with Loretta and Conway, the number of afternoons I spent playing ABBA’s Greatest Hits over and over probably drove my parents to secretly pray I’d fall in with the “wrong crowd” and take up some normal teenage activities, like illegal drag racing and underground tattoo art.  At least it would have gotten me out of the house.

Fortunately, I proved to just be a late bloomer. My senior year, I started listening to REM, Sonic Youth, and the Smiths,  mixing it up with a little Bon Jovi, on the side. (Hey, change doesn’t happen overnight! I still think “You Give Love a Bad Name” is a great song.)

 That spring, my friends and I also discovered that the honor roll didn’t rate at all compared to the pleasures of skipping school to smoke and drink beer and amaretto sours out by the lake.

I’m gonna try to keep that in mind if this kid wants to spend hours in her room listening to nothing but Chris Isaak or the Miami Sound Machine.