Always carry keys in your pocket...

....and check your humility at the door.  I promise I'll get to telling you about my RnR trip to Homer but that's going to have to wait until later. Right now I need to vent/laugh/cry/curl in a ball/ scream about my day today. So for those of you who don't know one of the reasons I came to Alaska was to get away from the grind of my old job. I used to work as an intake coordinator at a large community mental health center. We served a lot of un-funded, low income clients. Not all but a good majority. Day in and day out I had to tell people that there was very little funding available to them and they might not get all the services they need/deserved.

Today I was put in their shoes.

It was humbling.

So with out going into the details I had to make an appt at the low income women's health care clinic. I'm a tough cookie but a week of being in pain was enough. After filling out the obligatory forms and chatting with the receptionist I was told that I qualified for a reduction in payment for my services. Good deal. Well I was talking to the aide in the office and she told me what I had come in for didn't qualify for state funding, that she didn't want me to pay a million dollars and that I could make an appt at the other low income clinic. At this point I burst into tears, told her I didn't care how much I had to pay, that I hadn't slept for days and that I just wanted to get this taken care of. It was humbling having the roles reversed. Not having insurance is a scary place to be.

OK so that wasn't fun at all. Well since I deal with stress by cooking I came home and started to make crockpot chili, burritos, stir fry, home made stock and cookies. Freezable dinners for when I need something fast. I'm still staring at the pile of dishes. Well to make the stock I needed to go out to the freezer in the garage to get my scrap veggies. So out I go and not back in did I not come.

I had successfully locked myself out.

Now the family was out for the day and I didn't have my phone on me, I'm in my pj's wearing just my slippers and a light jacket. Then a light bulb hit that not 5 minutes before I had made sure to lock the front door.

Of course.

So I go into McGiver mode and find my snow pants out in the car and the doctors boots out on the front porch. I found a key in the car and tried it on every door to no avail. All the sliding glass doors are locked and so are the windows within my reach.

Now mind you I live in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. The houses are pretty far apart where I live and I don't really/if at all know the neighbors. Also mind you I have asthma and it gets bad when I'm panicked and it's cold. Just picture in your head how I was/wasn't breathing.

I trudge off to the neighbors house, ring the bell four times and knock on the door. There is no one home. The next house down has a huge no trespassing gate up and the house past that has so much snow it doesn't look like any one has been home in months.

So like a rational person I start waving my hands like a crazy person. Thankfully the first truck barreling down the high way stops for me. It's this older guy and he starts moving his things over as if I'm a hitch-hiker. He's on the phone so I motion with my hand that I need to call someone. Long story short he drives me up the road and lets me call 911. Where I have to explain that I'm the idiot who locked herself out. And, yes the whole time I'm panicked that this nice guy is going to be an ax murderer.

Well the State Trooper shows up and he starts jamming his knife into all the locks, we have to trudge through all the snow since the gate is jammed and nothing is working. I'm muttering under my breath to have some divine intervention at this point. Next we move on to the windows, the first one is a no go and the second he's able to shimmy open. Now I have to climb onto his hands and barrel roll over the bed. I thank him profusely from the window and start calling my Dad to sob.

It's been a great day huh??