Step 4

After 3 weeks of calling and calling and calling about my daughter's Medi-Cal, someone contacts me. Approved! A full month after my son's insurance was approved.

The Medi-Cal supervisor was the person who called. No word from the case worker. He (the supervisor)was amazingly rude. Kept referring to me as "dear." Yeah. I asked why it took three weeks for someone to call me back. I don't know, dear, but - hey, look at the shiny! He sounded like the sort of person who goes through special training to learn to be that level of unhelpful. The kind of person whose incompetence is a daily goal. And, unfortunately, a person whose job is secured for life.

I guess no one will be answering for the way I've been treated. They are already starting to not matter to me, though. I guess it can't be helped because I can't imagine that so many people would put up with what I went though. I just know that others have complained.

Although, I think I will try one last time getting answers with a couple of well-worded letters (Three down, one to go--totally not worth all this).

Step 3

So I find out I have to register my car within two weeks of becoming a resident of California. But, first, I need a smog test. Go. Smog test, I tells my husband. No go. Huh? Check engine light on. Automatic fail. Great. I go traipsing down to the old DMV all naive and such so that I can pay the fees first so that I won't be forced to pay penalties. I take a number and wait two hours and then...

$333.

Three hundred thirty three dollars. There goes my sanity. It was fun while it lasted. I had just registered the car in Mississippi. And I suspect I was paying more because it was recently registered. And, well, out of state. So on top of the $270 I had to pay to MS, I have to pay CA Three Hundred Thirty-three Dollars. Plus fix a check engine light to get a smog test so that I can finish registering the car (and the green grass grows all around, all around). Yeah.

Step 2

Sometimes, I think that California doesn't want anyone to move here.

It's all in the details.

When I finally got to Sacramento, I made a list of things I need to do. Enroll children in school, transfer health insurance, register car, and get driver's license. Each one of these items has been a painful lesson in bureaucracy.

Step 1

This is all in hindsight. It's 120/40, you know.

I have grown to known Jackson, MS, in my three or so years living there, and I won't have fond memories of this place. After Josh left, I... I don't know... grew restless, no... paranoid. Every squeak felt ominous. And I would stupidly watch the news and be scared silly of reports of murders and burglaries, all much too close to home.

I had decided before Josh had left that I was not staying in Jackson alone. It was too much. For one, I couldn't afford it. No one was hiring [me], and Josh didn't have a job in California yet. I would move back to my old hometown, well, more like home community. The biggest decision was whether to do it before or after Christmas. Of course, one night staring at the ceiling listening to sirens convinced me that it was going to be before.