Religious Tolerance at the Air Force Academy

I encourage everyone to celebrate this monumental announcement. It's quite the change from just a few years ago when the climate was much less tolerant.

 

Although, I heard some of the reports over the last year or so, and my ass twitches a bit at the chaplain office's claim to have supported Longcrier. It sure didn't seem that way when the original circle was being destroyed and a classic Run Around was going down. Better late than never, I suppose. And for now, we'll be grateful that attitudes seem to be shifting in a positive direction.

 

Congratulations to Longcrier and the Pagans of the Air Force Academy. May your path be cleared of bigotry and bollocks.

 

Monterey's Tricare Sitch

I have to take back what I said about Tricare's shit-tastic offerings in the Monterey area. It turns out, when I went to the Tricare office and was given exactly one option for female docs with Tricare in Monterey, they didn't mean in "Monterey." They meant in the city limits of Monterey. Which doesn't include the zillions of little add-on townlets everywhere that take exactly one minute to get to.

 

I am rid of the one doc in Monterey (city of), whose main focus is NOT on her family practice but rather on the "aesthetics" facility she has right next door to the family practice…for which she runs ads at night. On TV. Like an infomercial. Which is skeezy.

 

I have a fabulous doctor in neighboring Pacific Grove now, and I'm thrilled. I've been super sick for the last few months with some bronchitis-y confection with absolutely unknown origins that would not go away. It turns out I'm allergic to medication I didn't need to be on that the used-car-sales-doc put me on. I'm off now and, though still suffering a few of the ill effects of the drug, am feeling healthier than I have in months.

 

Months, I tell you. This doc is awesome. The other doc? She is not awesome. I had high hopes since she seemed really nice, but…yeah. Nice person does not make for a good doctor necessarily, and when I'm competing with the octogenarians over who's getting more prescriptions filled on a weekly basis, something's wrong.

 

So Tricare here is not *quite* the suck that I insisted it was. They're still low-balling the hell out of providers, but hey. My kid had to get about $1k worth of blood tests done recently, and Tricare paid the hospital less than $200 for them. At least I didn't have to pay for any of it, though. There's that.

 

In other news, the gum surgery I had a few months ago, which included a freaking gum graft (remember the frenum discussion? muwahaha), still has a massive chunk of unpaid amount on it. Why? Tricare's dental program (United Concordia, which also seems to suck the balls of hairiness) says I didn't need anesthesia for a gum graft. So I get to pay $600 for that. That's right.

 

Thank you for your asshattery, United Concordia. And as soon as I can, I'm going to write a long and winding opinion piece on your shit-tastic provider abilities and make sure the world knows what service members' families get to deal with.

 

Ur ass, let me show u it.

 

About to leave for a week of intense edumacation. It'll probably be light blogging this semester, as the intensity of classes will likely leave me bald and in a stupor. Hopefully, though, the Navy will give me reason to vent my piss so y'all are at least occassionally able to revel in my emo.

 

Stay classy, San Diego!