Follow the Senior Hummingbird

If I had the chance to be reincarnated, I’d only agree if I could come back as a dancer.  I felt intuitively that’s what I wanted to be the very first time I accompanied my friend to her ballet class when we were in elementary school.  I literally drooled watching the class.  But my parents didn’t have much money and didn’t think it was a good investment.  So, I just continued to go with her as a disappointed observer.  What I lacked besides lessons was any talent for dancing, and I’ve remained mainly an appreciator – with the exception of eventually taking Belly Dance lessons as a 30 year old and then the Joy of Dance when I was in my late 50s and my teacher was 89.

My first “real” job was after school in high school at the Publicity Department of a lumber company.  What I remember most is riding my bike to work and having a crush on the guy who knew just how to make the folding machine work perfectly.  In college, I worked in our library.  I had a short stint as a secretary in a stamp collecting company and couldn’t believe how excited people got over stamps.  The job I was waiting for was a civil service position as a social worker in foster care.  Nothing in my education or life prepared me for that, but the pay was great ($5,000 a year!) and I had a husband studying in graduate school.

With a break of 10 years to be a stay-at-home mom, my social work jobs in foster care, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (Welfare), designer and coordinator of  The Volunteer Center at a Mental Health clinic, and a Community Educator for a Battered Women’s Program gave me a profound introduction to life as I had (thankfully) never personally experienced it.  The jobs were gut-wrenching, intense, eye-opening, and depressing – even after I achieved a Master’s in Social Work and had some educational training.  In truth, I was overwhelmed and wasn’t a very good social worker.  But it added many dimensions to my knowledge of people.

Then, I set out to know the world widely and culturally.  Having a Master’s in Social Work enabled me to enter Israel as a new immigrant in a training program for American social workers.  The program put me into an internship in child abuse and neglect.  But once on my own, and ever since then, work and play have mingled interestingly and happily.  Although I was not particularly good at it, I was a housemother in an Israeli boarding school to newly arrived Ethiopian teenage boys.  Everything was new. Working in the Hebrew language, living with very religious Jews, and absorbing the cultures of both Israel and Ethiopia at one time were not easy challenges, but endlessly fascinating.

My next job was with a program called Interns for Peace where Jews and Arabs worked together to promote peaceful coexistence.  The challenges were enormous, but enabled me to live as the solitary Jew among 35,000 Arabs in the Israeli-Arab town of Shefaram.  And that was where I first tried out being a teacher by having after school English clubs in the Shefaram Community Center.  I was beginning to find my true job niche.

When I went to China in 1988, I decided to use teaching as a tool to get to know the Chinese culture.  I literally knocked on doors in Hangzhou, China, and said, “Hi, I’d like to teach English.”  Once invited to be a teacher in a small tourism school, it was clear I had found the job I was good at — teaching English to non-native English speakers.  And I have remained a teacher since then, living in China, Taiwan, Macau, Bali, and Korea.  Once back in the U.S., I headed for the local community colleges to teach adult ESL students.

It was an unusual life, and an unusual career that remained a joy.  What it didn’t have was promotions, benefits, and pensions.  Now that I’m 67, I’m more aware of that than ever.  However, I feel fortunate that, for most of my working life, I loved my jobs.

I went to a concert today that was uplifting.  The young musicians were friends, extremely talented in playing and composing, and obviously enjoyed what they were doing.  One of the violinists had been a child prodigy and first played in our community at the tender age of 9.   She made a comment about how she didn’t have any friends as a child because she was always practicing, but now in adulthood, she had many friends — musicians like herself.  Yes, there can be sacrifices along the way before your work and play become one.

I keep a quote on my bathroom mirror that our yoga teacher passed out one day.  It says, “The Master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion.  He hardly knows which is which.  He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.  To him, he is always doing both.”

Many years ago in my undergraduate college, I had a professor whose native language was not English.  I struggled to understand him, not knowing then that I would become a world traveler and an English teacher who would be continually challenged to understand non-native English speakers in many diverse parts of the world.  One particularly troubling part of my professor’s English was that he commonly ended sentences in his lectures with “Sara, sara, sara.”  I’m not sure how I eventually figured out that he was mispronouncing etc., etc., etc.

And so on with my quest to find out how to dispute my hospital bill and complain about the lack of communication from 7 of the 8 doctors who treated me during my two July hospitalizations.   Perhaps there has been a breakthrough to the RIGHT place finally.   I eventually found a Customer Service person at Secure Horizons who directed me to Ovations, Appeal and Grievance Department for Secure Horizons.  I sent all my paperwork, but was told there was no phone number I could call and to expect 60 days before I’d hear from them.

The good news is that they actually do have a phone number and someone from Ovations called me to say that my paperwork had arrived.  The dispute over the bill would go to one section that would make a decision within 60 days.  And the complaints against the doctors would go to a different section and I’d receive their investigative report in 30 days.  I explained my problem with the Financial Service Department at the hospital saying my bill could NOT be put on hold (and thus not go to a collection agency) unless they had a file number from Ovations.  The dear lady called the Financial Department and got their consent to hold the bill until a decision was made.

Whew!!  All the hours, wasted phone calls, and frustration that went into arriving at this moment.  And I really have no idea what the Appeals and Grievance Department can or will do.  I just feel grateful to have arrived at a place where my written voice can be heard.  The bigger question of WHY it was so difficult to find out WHERE and HOW to complain will never be properly answered.  Shouldn’t every Secure Horizons Customer Service representative know? I couldn’t be the first person who had a co-pay dispute and complaints about the doctors.   But I did learn something else about Medicare’s Secure Horizons.  People who have Secure Horizons in other counties and states have totally different plans.  The more I learn about Medicare, the more amazed I am at how convoluted Medicare is.  Does it really have to be so complicated?

And so on, so on, so on it goes.

Alice said it best when things in Wonderland got “curiouser and curiouser.”  In Hamlet, there’s the well-known phrase, “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.”  Both could be applied to my continuing battle with the medical bureaucracy.  Every day brings a new spin.

After paying one co-pay of $450 for hospitalization plus the Emergency Room, the outstanding co-pay I am disputing started at $450, lurched up to $706, back to $450 and now is down to $225.  To verify the new bill of $225, I called Secure Horizons again to ask what my policy’s co-pay was for a one day hospital stay.  They confirmed it was $175 for under 24 hours in the hospital, plus $50 for the emergency room.  Okay, that checked out.  But the Secure Horizons customer representative told me that a correction to the bill had been received from the hospital on July 10th!  If the hospital discovered their billing error as early as July 10th, why did I receive a bill from the hospital dated 7/24 for $450 and then one for $706 dated August 23?   Would I have ever found out from either Secure Horizons or the hospital that my outstanding bill was really $225?  And, if I had been foolish enough to pay the $706 or the second $450, would I have ever received a refund above $225??????   When?? From whom??

Medicare and the hospital talk about money as though it’s Monopoly money.  I am a low income retired senior trying to make it on $400 a month Social Security, plus a quickly diminishing pool of IRA savings.   I’m not playing a game, but they are.

I finally convinced the Financial Department of the hospital to hold my outstanding balance until I heard the results of my grievance to Ovations, the grievance department of Secure Horizons.   I was told I needed to submit a letter from Ovations stating that they would be reviewing my grievance.  However, the Secure Horizons clerk said that I would not receive ANY communication from Ovations until they had decided on my case within 60 days — past the deadline for my outstanding bill to be sent to a Collection Agency.  And, amazingly, apparently Ovations doesn’t believe in having telephones — at least no phone number is available to talk with them.  No choice but to wait for them to grace me with their decision letter.

There’s yet another mystery.    I went to my primary care doctor yesterday to hear him explain all those lab tests I had done and what the 8 doctors had said about my illness.   After a $40,000 bill and 8 doctors, he said there was no diagnosis and not even any good guesses as to what had happened to make me so ill.

I would prefer to be in Alice’s Wonderland.

I know for sure that I’m NOT the first person who has ever disputed a medical bill.  Yet, there seems to be no procedure.  At least, what I’ve been told keeps shifting.  Have I made any progress?  Here’s what happened.

When I first called the Financial Department of the hospital to dispute the co-pay for the second admission necessary within 3 days of my discharge, I was told to send a letter.  Which I did.  I never received a response about my dispute with the bill.

When I called again, I was informed that the hospital was NOT responsible for what the doctors did.  The lady said I would need to start arbitration proceedings against the doctor who signed my discharge papers.  I asked whom to contact about doing that and she said she’d get back to me with the information.

On my ?th call to my insurance company to find out how to dispute my bill AND submit complaints about the lack of communication by 7 of the 8 doctors I had during two hospitalizations, I finally was given the name Ovations, Appeals and Greivance Dept., which handles grievances for Secure Horizons.  No phone number was available, but I was told to send them complete information.  Which I did — along with copies to the financial department of the hospital and the Patient Liaison at the hospital.

When I called Financial Services at the hospital again and asked that my outstanding bill be put on hold so that it would not be sent to a collection agency, thus trashing my credit rating, I was told that the ONLY way an outstanding bill could be put on hold was if arbitration had been started.  Otherwise, the clock kept ticking.  I asked again how I start arbitration, and was told she’d get back to me.

The clerk told me that I had been sent my second bill (my first overdue bill), but that the amount was in error.  It was $250 more than the earlier bill.  She said  it was based on an additional per day hospitalization co-pay which was actually incorrect for my particular Medicare insurance policy.  But, when I received the bill for $706 instead of $450, it had a notation of $256 for a “Probe Pulse Oxisensor” instead of any additional co-pay.  She told me I’d receive a corrected bill for $450 in September when the computer once again sent out bills.

This “creative accounting” reminded me of many years ago when I was charged $500 for periodental work.  When I asked what the components were for the $500, the list included something like $150 to teach the patient how to use a Rotadent.  When I pointed out that $150 seemed rather steep for that, she said that, in fact, the price was $500 and they just made up numbers that would add up to that.   The Medicare insurance game must have the same shifting rules of accounting.

A short while later, the clerk at Financial Services called me back and said that her supervisor had noted a mistake in the original billing and that I should have been charged for one “observation” instead of two hospitalizations.  So, my bill was now reduced to an outstanding amount of $225.  I would receive that updated bill – well, she wasn’t sure when.   And, they had decided that the bill COULD be put on hold IF Ovations sent them a letter saying they would investigate and make a decision within 60 days.  So, arbitration would not be necessary at this time.

The hospital and insurance companies must be used to “funny money” and “creative accouting.”  Yet, each dollar they insist I need to pay is very tangible to me.  I am fighting for the principle of not being manipulated even more by the bureaucracy, as well as for my shrinking dollars.

With this added drama, I have added a new suggestion for others facing medical bill messes — REMAIN POLITE, BUT BE VERY, VERY PERSISTENT.

Back in the 1970s, I lived next to some wonderfully wild hills in Santa Barbara (California) owned by the Jesuits who wanted to sell the land to developers. I walked those hills and talked to those hills and couldn’t bear to see them destroyed. So, I went up against the developer with the city’s Planning Commission and I convinced the Commission to deny the request to build that development. The fancy lawyer for the developer came up to me afterward and said simply, “Next time, I want to be on your side.”

I’ve thought of those hills (which were later designated as undeveloped open space in perpetuity) and that lawyer many times when I’ve needed to steel my courage to face unpleasant and cruel bureaucracies.

You may think you’ll never need to know how to dispute a hospital bill or complain about bad medical care.  But think again!  Life can change in a flash, or as it did in my case, in a faint.  Emerging from the shock of falling ill plus enduring medical care run amok, I documented in some detail in July’s posts, my two hospitalizations.  Now, I’m moving on to face disputing my co-pay for the second hospitalization, plus figuring out how to complain effectively about the lack of communication with 7 out of the 8 doctors who were assigned to me.

This is the start of what is proving to be a long, frustrating process.  I want to share it with you as it unfolds.  Here are some things I’ve learned so far.

1.  SENDING A DISPUTE LETTER TO THE HOSPITAL FOR THE HOSPITAL BILL DOES NOT STOP THE BILLING PROCESS.  In my case, it accomplished nothing since I’ve been informed I need to pay it all in a timely fashion or it will go to a Collection agency.  If that happens,  my credit rating will be trashed.   My dispute arises from being billed my co-pay for two hospital admissions ($450 each time) within 3 days.  I contend that I was discharged the first time without adequate treatment.

2.  SENDING A LETTER OF COMPLAINT TO THE HOSPITAL’S PATIENT LIAISON DOESN’T ACCOMPLISH MUCH.  My letter was about two aspects of my hospitalization — the poor to non-existent communication with 7 of the 8 doctors assigned to me as well as the financial dispute.  I received a reply in about a week that made no mention at all of the financial dispute and stated succinctly “I have referred your concerns to our Director of Medical Staff Department for trending and feedback to the physicians.  Physicians on our medical staff (as with any hospital) are free agents and not employed by the hospital so we must use the organized medical staff structure to monitor and trend physician conduct and performance.  Unfortunately, the results and conclusions of those findings, are, by law, protected and the hospital is unable to disclose those findings outside of the committee review process.  You may also contact the Medical Board at 800-633-2322.”

So, if anything happens with my complaints to the hospital, I’ll never know.

3.  OUTSIDE SATISFACTION SURVEYS SENT TO THE PATIENT TO FILL OUT ARE ONLY RECYCLED BACK TO THE SAME PATIENT LIAISON PERSON AT THE PARTICULAR HOSPITAL.

So, it seems there are no other paths to complain about my hospital treatment that are of any consequence.

4.  BE VERY SURE TO GET YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS AND GO THROUGH THEM CAREFULLY.  You will learn interesting things as I did, such as things you supposedly said but you know you didn’t.  I also learned that my blood work was already going in very strange directions BEFORE I was discharged the first time.  Yet, I was not told about this, nor given any specific instructions upon discharge except to see my primary care physician the next week.  I could see from the physicians’ notes that the first doctor never wrote down that I had been bitten by a tick in Yellowstone — a crucial piece of medical information.  There was also the notation during my second hospitalization by the ONLY doctor who did actually listen to me and talk to me that I was still dehydrated and she ordered additional fluid.  So, this proves to me what I already knew — I was not adequately rehydrated during my first hospitalization.  And that led directly to my second hospitalization.

5.  KEEP CALLING YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY UNTIL YOU GET SOMEONE WHO ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS.  It’s truly frustrating to spend so much time waiting, pushing this button and that button, but all clerks who answer the phone at your insurance company are not equal.  Some know more than others.  Some are willing to find out what they don’t know.  I FINALLY was given an address to send an official grievance letter to.  Yet another clerk said that my insurer, Secure Horizons, would also send a formal grievance letter about my hospital care on their behalf.  Still another clerk suggested that I call back and request that a Secure Horizons clerk call the hospital’s Financial Department to ask them to put a hold on my outstanding bill for  30 days until the grievance could be decided.  I’ll have to let you know later if that had any effect.

I just know I can’t be the first person to ever make complaints about my hospital care, or to dispute my hospital bill.  Yet, there seems to be no procedure in place.  Instead, I must pick up many little scraps of information wherever I can  and discover for myself which ones are dead ends.

6.  READ A NEW BOOK OUT CALLED “THE EMPOWERED PATIENT” BY CNN REPORTER ELIZABETH COHEN WHO TELLS YOU DIRECTLY JUST HOW VULNERABLE YOU ARE WITH DOCTORS AND HOSPITALS AND SUGGESTS WAYS TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE.

My story is by no means unique.  There are many horror stories out there about poor medical treatment, lack of communication with doctors, and ridiculously exorbitant costs in the U.S.  So many in fact, that it’s overwhelming.  And yet…..

I survived the dehydration, the fainting, a tick bite, and an undiagnosed infection.  Now, I’m ready to fight for the right to competent medical care with doctors who truly communicate.   The exorbitant costs in Medicare will no doubt remain, but I at least want to have my say.

The logo on the stationery from the hospital states, THE STANDARD OF EXCELLENCE IN HEALTH CARE.  I’d like to help them live up to that description.

I lost my balance this summer. The first whammy that knocked me off my balance was when I fainted and was hospitalized twice in one week. I’ve now read my medical records and it’s still difficult to determine what my body was reacting to. Part was dehydration, but many of my numbers — blood pressure, blood counts, cholesterol — went in unusual directions, weirdly even including healthier than “my normal.” My body seemed to eventually right itself back to “my normal,” but not before I had endured many unnecessary, expensive tests, was weakened by a strong antibiotic that it turns out I didn’t need after all, and discomforting memories of a very unpleasant time in the hospital. The problems passed, but the high expense and that very disquieting feeling of vulnerability in the hospital will remain.
While I was in the hospital, my 1993 Oldsmobile inherited from my dad decided that we finally needed to part. The leak under it declared it needed a new transmission. At a cost of $2,000, that didn’t make sense. So, I’m now trying to negotiate our bus system, taxis, and occasionally relying on friends to get around. The lack of independence that I felt with a car that allowed me to zip hither and thither at my whim is what’s hard to get used to. But I probably won’t buy another car. The expense in owning a car, busier roads, gas at over $3.00 a gallon, deteriorating eyesight and reaction times all deter me.
Following quickly upon the death of my car was the collapse of my computer. I put $100 into trying to revive it, but I had to accept that five years in the hands of someone who loved it, but never quite understood it, aged it beyond help. So, I am now dizzily riding the treacherous learning curve of a new computer that knows so much more than I do.
Yes, change is good. I loved the constant challenge of change when I was traveling from place to place, culture to culture. However, the rapid succession of changes I experienced this summer are not exhilarating and refreshing. Rather, they must be endured and overcome.
My time in Asia gave me an appreciation of the concept of balance in body and mind. I fell out of balance this summer and am trying to right myself.

From my perspective of having been a woman solo traveler, the hype around the book, “Eat, Pray, Love,” the movie, the memorabilia for sale, and even Eat, Pray, Love tours has taken me by surprise. Do that many middle-aged woman really want to leave their present lives and set out with a backpack for an extended voyage of personal discovery?
Most of my girlfriends were more horrified than envious when I left a nice upper-middle-class life and my roles as wife and mother and, at the age of 40, set out in 1983 with a one-way ticket on an open-ended world-wide journey that lasted, in fact, over 16 years.
I purposely set out for places I knew either nothing or little about — Israel, China, Taiwan, Macau, Bali, and Korea. I didn’t know what I expected to find, and that was the compelling part. Like Liz Gilbert in “Eat, Pray, Love,” I was driven by unfulfilled parts within me that pushed me out of the known, the comfortable, the predictable. I kept journals and eventually put them into “Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird.”
Women who read my book or learn of my wandering life usually say that I was very brave to venture alone “out there” without a support system, without much money, without knowing the languages of the countries I lived in. In my way of thinking, one is brave if she does something she’s afraid of. However, I didn’t feel afraid or lonely. I intuitively adapted to such an unusual life and found it so fascinating that I continued from middle-age until I was no longer middle-aged and my elderly parents needed my presence in the U.S. I learned I was a sculptor of sorts who could carve out niches for myself wherever I went. I had a talent for building bridges with the cultures I lived within. I met colorful characters and friendly people, many of whom remain my friends to this day. Like Liz, I healed as much as I could from the pain I’d caused and the guilt of leaving loved ones behind. And I had to admit I didn’t regret my decisions.
Is extended solo travel always a life-changing event as it was for Liz Gilbert and as it was for me? You may find love and riches beyond your wildest imagination like Liz did. You may find fulfillment and joy in independence as I did. Or you may discover you are overjoyed to return to the known, the comfortable, and the predictable.

I lay on my back looking out upon the clear night sky of Idyllwild, California, under the Perseus meteor shower. This has become my annual birthday celebration with a friend who shares the same birthday time and a love of shooting stars.
Under the splendor of the Milky Way and the constellations, we scan the sky for shooting stars and question heavenly sights we do not understand. What is that bright, fast moving light that suddenly disappears?
Often, but not always, we both see the shooting star going out in it’s final blaze of glory and we call out its number of the night. Between 10 p.m. and midnight the first night, we counted ten. The second night, 26, and the third night 40. One spectacular sighting that my friend saw, but I missed, were closely parallel shooting stars. But we both saw the best birthday gift — one loooong, slow, bright explosion arcing all across our view of the sky. It was the quintessential perfect shooting star!
Being out there under the magnificence of the heaven always brings me a sense of wonder, humility, and the assurance that I’m a part of nature, albeit an infinitesimal part.
Back home again, I walked to a nearby spring where I like to sit in a tree and contemplate. Needless to say, I don’t have to climb up very high to sit in a comfortable, convenient spot. This is not just a tree — it has a very long history dating back to its youth when the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth. I can sense its age and power and wisdom when I sit in it, hug one of its many trunks, and look up to the leafy branches that seem to offer directions my life could go in.
Aliso Creek, although not a truly clean creek, meanders close by. It attracts ducks, egrets, and lots of tadpoles. Tall reeds and stately pussy willows sometimes choke the flow of the water. But there is always a beautiful, colorful reflection of the surrounding rocks in a part of the creek that always pools nicely.
I’ve been watching this creek for 11 years now, noting the changes I’ve seen in it. This time, I saw a log that had been dragged across a narrow part. Although some water could go under it, a brown sludge was building up behind it, strangling the flow.
Although the log was heavy, I pulled it away. Immediately, the sludge on the top broke apart as the water surged through it. The natural flow of the water was restored, reminding me of how I broke through obstacles in my life so I, too, could flow naturally.

It wasn’t easy buying a car when I was an immigrant in Israel. For some reason, new cars were not being ordered at that time, so I couldn’t make choices such as color and amenities. I bought an Opel that was available on the floor. My parents had come to visit me for the first time since I’d moved to Israel, and carried in $8,000 in cash from my savings.
Immigrants were allowed to purchase ONE car in their lifetime for 50% tax. Israelis paid about 200% tax when they purchased a car. For five years, the immigrant and the state of Israel owned the car jointly, meaning that it could not be sold without paying the extra taxes that had been earlier avoided. Most new immigrants at that time bought one nice car, sold it 5 years or more later without paying additional taxes, and bought a new small car.
Although I didn’t look forward to the roads filled with nervous, easily-agitated Israeli drivers, I did love my green car. I even named it proudly — Magic Carpet Leaf. For three years, I managed somehow to avoid having a car accident in that very accident-prone country.
In 1988, I was living in the Arab Israeli town of Shefaram in the Galilee area while working for a program that promoted co-existence between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews. The Jews who worked in the program lived in Arab villages. The population of Shefaram at that time was about 35,000 Moslem, Christian, and Druse Arabs and one Jew — me.
On February 18, 1988, there was a cold, calculated murder in Shefaram! My wonderful Magic Carpet Leaf was bombed. I slept through the time gas was poured over the front tires and ignited. I slept through the fire department putting out the fire. And then my neighbors came to wake me and tell me what had happened. We saved some things from the trunk, somewhat the worse for wear and reeking of smoke.
Amidst the confusion of the policemen, the firemen, and neighbors telling me not to cry, a little dog I had befriended and named Pancho suddenly appeared in the dark night. I ran and picked him up and held him close.
Later that night, I walked outside in the early morning — too early for people to be around — so that I could grieve and have a funeral for Magic Carpet Leaf. The pretty green of the back of the car made such a sad contrast to the ugly blackened front of the car. As I had often done, I talked to it and expressed my gratitude for having kept me safe for the three years.
In the misty early morning, I hugged as much of its wet, cold metal as I could get my hands and arms around. I cried over it, thanked it, apologized to it, and bid it farewell. Pancho was there too. He sensed that I was upset and stood loyally by my side for comfort.

For someone who never truly enjoyed driving and spent many years living as a nomad without a car, I still had strong relationships with each of my cars. Upon the recent death of my last car, I remember other cars I loved.

It took me a long time to even be able to drive a used Ford Ranger pick-up truck that my husband and I bought for a camping trip to Alaska in 1969. It was a stick shift and I had previously only driven an automatic. It had a low camper shell over the bed of the truck, which my husband cleverly converted into a cozy place to sleep and efficiently store our stuff. Even though you couldn’t stand up in it, it made a great home for our 7 weeks from California up to and along the Alcan (Alaska/Canada) Highway, using the guidebook, “The Milepost.” We had intended to sell the truck after we got home, but couldn’t part with it.

My husband, son, and I spent many happy years camping in that truck.  One of my favorite pictures is of us on our way up to Friday Harbor, Washington, where my husband did research at the Labs there in the summer.  Our strong black truck with the white camper shell and the bright red canoe tied upside down on the top stands  waiting expectantly for the upcoming camping adventures.

It was the truck that I chose to keep when my husband and I divorced. It seemed a more practical choice for my move to New Orleans, and it turned out to be even more useful than I expected. I went back to school to get a Master’s of Social Work degree while I was in Louisiana. I lived and did my field practice in New Orleans, but had to be at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge (a few hours away) for classes two consecutive days a week. Hmmm! Where could I stay cheaply overnight?
I solved the problem with my trusty truck. Already outfitted for sleeping and storage, I discovered a motel on the campus that was open all night, allowing access to the restrooms. For some reason, a large number of police cars were usually parked in that motel parking lot, which gave me at least the illusion of safety. I swam in the gym pool after classes, which also gave me a chance for a good shower. And I studied in the campus library until it closed. Then, I curled up comfortably in my sleeping bag in the truck. I ended every stay on campus with a magnificent bowl of gumbo or jambalaya in the university cafeteria. It worked out very well for the two years I had to do it. And I was very grateful for the home the truck provided.
When I was leaving the U.S. and had to sell my friend, the truck, I cried as it went down the road without me.
Magic Carpet Leaf was my dear car when I was an immigrant in Israel. Its end was very dramatic. But that’s a story I’ll leave for my next post.