Rejected Furniture, Health and Flight Plans

Some random thoughts as I am now at T-minus 82 days before boarding my flight to Thailand.  

I just had the Goodwill REJECT my donation of a couple pieces of furniture!  My old chaise lounge and a desk chair dating back to the early 90’s had been in the storage shed.  Last year, the shed sprung a small leak.  I found evidence of rodents of some kind were living in there.  So, the chaise and desk chair had gotten somewhat besmirched.  
The Goodwill guy said they can’t take furniture that wasn’t in “good condition” or was “dirty”… Mine was both.

I’m going to clean them up and try again.

I wanted to say, “do you realize how many thousands of dollars worth of stuff I’ve dropped off here over the last couple months?!?!   Gimme a break!”
 

Well, at least state recycling law required them to take the 42” Samsung projection DLP TV that was only 18 months old when the bulb went out.  Even then, it’s junk not worth fixing.

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 I’m starting to plan my meals around using up the reserve larder of food in my pantry.  You’d be surprised how many ways you can combine Top Ramen, gravy packets and Rice-a-Roni.

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I set up a doctors appointment for next week where I’m going to a get a pre-departure complete physical.  As my ultimate goal is teaching in Indonesia, and they require both an HIV test and a letter from a doctor in the country of origin (they don’t trust their own doctors?) that one is in “good health” before they’ll grant a work visa, I am going to be requesting both of those too.  They need to be translated into Bahasa Indonesia (the language of Indonesia).  Thank heavens for Google translate as it might be hard for me to find an in-network Indonesian doctor here in Seattle.

I’m not really all that worried.  I FEEL like I’m in relatively good health, but there remains this miniscule chance that I’ll be told, “I’m sorry, Joko, you cannot leave the country because you’re dying.”

The cool thing is that I’ll be seeing the same doctor who, after some blood tests relating to the psoriasis medication he’d prescribed me, told me: “Mr MacKenna, if you keep drinking the way you do, you will be dead in five years.”  That was five years ago.  I’m going to thank him for that warning, which didn’t sober me up right away, but has been something that’s remained part of my psyche ever since. 

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As I’m gathering up the documents I’ll need for my work visa in Thailand, amongst things I need are employment verification letters from my last two employers.   

Well, my second-to-last employer and I did not part on good terms.  I took them to the state equal employment opportunity commission to protest their dismissing me for something that was not work related and was a product of a medically verified condition.  They can’t fire you for being sick.  Anyways, I lost that case, but I suspected that they might not be all that friendly to me in sending me documents at my request.  Not only did I get the letter I needed, but they sent it to me via registered mail at their expense. 

Hmm.  Good on them.

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We’ve been experiencing perfect “I so want to leave this place” weather here in Seattle this month.  Temperatures in the mid-30’s F every single day, but without any of the enchanting snow that makes really cold weather otherwise magical and fun.  It's just been cold and dreary and tedious. 

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I bought my airline ticket already.  Singapore Air (which I’ve flown before and had the best service of any airline I’ve experienced) will take me from LAX to Tokyo, then to Singapore and arriving at Phuket on 14^th of April.  My ESL school is picking me up at the airport.   

The details of how and when I’m getting from here to LAX remain undetermined.  I suppose I’m going to drive to California, sell my truck down there somewhere and go from there.