somehow none of my transcripts - 2 sent in july and 1 sent on the 13th of this month - never made it to the county schools office. the attitude at the county at the moment is that it's something on my/our end, but i don't think all three transcripts would have been lost in the mail. that's just plain . . . odd. i think something happened somewhere along the way in their office. maybe they went to the wrong department or got misfiled or even circular filed since the two were sent so long before my app actually made it into the office. lord knows. i'm sending off the copies i have, marked up though they may be (i was trying to figure out my gpa), in hopes they can either replace official copies or cover for the official copies until i can get new ones sent - which i don't want to do until i'm sure the previous copies are definitely beyond all recovery. either way, without transcripts i can't get hired. ug.

i'm dealing with a lot of little oddities out here. none of them are major so far, they're just different. but the end result is i finally feel like i might be getting a handle on living out here, then something else crops up and i'm thrown off balance again.

did you know not all kaiser permanentes are the same? i figured things should carry over easily from the cali kaiser to the georgia kaiser, but nooooo. the newest wrinkle is that froggy's meds aren't on the formulary list out here. if the kaiser out here won't cover them after we get our change of region finished, then we have to go through the insanity of finding a new medication for her because there is no way i can afford $95/month even when i am working. another difference is the medicaid/kaiser relationship. out in cali we had no co-pays for my son because medicaid covered it. out here they don't stack that way and, in fact, we're going to have to take taz to a medicaid doctor for his autism because the kaiser out here doesn't even have an autism specialist. i realize cali probably has a higher patient load than out here, but atlanta isn't tiny folks, and it's growing every day (and, from what the doctor we say today said, a lot of californians are bailing to the east coast, lol). it seems to me a autism specialist just might be a good idea for them to get.

it's such a contradiction: the schools are so aware of the rising number of diagnosed autistics that they have special autism programs and classes in the schools, but one of the major medical providers doesn't have an autistic specialist. that's just . . . odd.

then there is the low income utility programs i mentioned yesterday. in cali you apply through the utility company. out here you apply through dhs and get some certificate that says you're low income and send that in to the utility companies. it's a round about way of doing things. and these companies do not mess around with late bills. in cali, you had up to 3 months to make a payment. then, as long as you made a reasonable payment (sorry, $5 or $10 wouldn't work), you don't get disconnected. out here it doesn't matter if you've made a significant payment or not. 2 months and you get a disconnect notice. period. i'm in a frantic scramble mode to get everything covered right now and it's not fun. i've even made significant payments to most of them and it just doesn't matter. in fact, i just cleared a past due bill with our phone company last week, but i'm sure the 2 calls i missed today have to do with making another payment.

and it would figure all this would come to a head right when i need ink, paper, and a new day planner. *rolls eyes*

i swear, i need that subbing job. my transcripts vanishing is just a little irritating. the good news is that once we catch up from the deposits, everything except the electric bill should reduce drastically. the electric bill is just plain scary. lol

another big oddity i think i've mentioned before is the sunshine out here. well, not so much the sunshine itself as when it actually gets dark out here. in cali it was 7:30 at the latest. out here it's 9 or 9:30 on average, and we're constantly loosing track of time.

all this is just the big stuff. there's little stuff that happens all the time, so there's a sense of two steps forward and one step back in terms of how well and how quickly we're adjusting. i know it's going to take us some time to really settle in and feel comfortable, but this is getting to be a bit ridiculous. half the time i'm bewildered, the other half i feel like an idiot.

and i'm sure mcat and family think his sis and her family are just plain strange.