I decided with my wife it was time to go back to Ireland where I am from. I have been in Los Angeles for nearly thirty years and the city isn’t the same place it once was.
The Pandemic changed allot of things, I am lucky and I count my blessing that I can get out and head back to a small town for a break from the big city and the problems that are going on here.
Things weren’t that great before the pandemic hit us. I wrote about a pole that was drooping and could hurt people if they were blind and walked into it. After a month or so I took it down, The City never came to fix it and actually just complained about the way I asked them to help with said pole. So obviously there was something not that great even before Pandemic.
Of course then we had Pandemic, and the world changed. I had to take time from my job to look after my wife who wasn’t well. Then after a while we decided I should take an early retirement and we should head back to Ireland. Of course the original plan was to head back sometime next year. But fate would deal a few blows that changed our minds.
The building we live in was sold and the new owner/manager wants to do the LA thing and kick out the existing tenants, paint the place and charge a fortune. It doesn’t matter the people in my building are here on average 15-20 years. The longest has lived here about 45 years. Kicking people out of their homes is not a noble enterprise. Then new guy (I won’t use real names to be politically correct), let us just call him ASSHOLE!
So asshole started the three month retrofit during and pandemic to cut us out or our parking and make it just that bit more uncomfortable living here.
I feel like I am looking at the end of Los Angeles as I knew it, nobody I know can spend $3000 a month in rent. So it’s been harder to get things ready to leave, moving is already a stressful thing.
I left my job but needed health insurance for the last few months here. There is Cobra, which sounds great if you can afford it. But it’s even worse than you think. After you leave your job you are usually insured until the end of the month. The job has a few weeks to send the papers to the cobra people letting them know you have officially left. Then the cobra people have a few weeks to send you the papers to sign up for cobra. Then you sign up and they have another ten business days to let the health insurance company know you are paid up and they can cover you. This means it takes about a month the get the coverage with cobra, during that month you have no coverage, they back date it, but you can’t schedule appointments or get medication because you aren’t covered. So you pay a month for health insurance that doesn’t exist! Fucked up!!
I bought a car last January because at that time I was still going to be here for a few years. The Title for the car had the wrong address on it so of course I didn’t get it. I found this out about eight weeks ago when you could still actually call the DMV after only a two hour wait. Today I would forget it as I have been on hold with them the last week for about six hours and no joy. Happily I am also a AAA person and boy did it save my life this time. I was able to get my business done with a real person, Go figure!!
On reflection I am glad I gave myself the time to get ready, because if I was in a rush I wouldn’t have had enough time and I wouldn’t be ready when I am supposed to leave. I am looking forward to writing about where I am from and getting to know it again. I hope you will enjoy my getting to know Ireland again posts from November on.
