Inside the Outerbelt

Is that legal?

Jeff — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:05:26 +0000

In my job I often come across…interesting situations. Today a gentleman (I’ll call him Young Mr. Grace) came into my office to inquire about adding his future spouse onto his retirement plan and health care. He was a nice man of 85 and his wife passed away several years ago. His first question to me was, “if I get married, how much would it cost to add my wife to my health care plan?” This is not an uncommon question. I’ve seen older retirees get re-married late in life. It happens all the time. Sometimes it’s out of love and sometimes, believe it or not, it’s strictly for practical purposes, like adding the new spouse to health care. In order to calculate the cost for the future spouse’s health care premium, I had to ask for her date of birth. Young Mr. Grace hesitated for a brief moment, so I thought he was going to say he had to look it up or perhaps think it over to try to remember it. He looked at me and explained that many years ago, he and his deceased wife took in a young girl and adopted her. That girl is now 45 years old and is Young Mr. Grace’s caregiver. Being unemployed, she does not have health insurance. The Young Mr. Grace wanted to be able to provide her with health care coverage now and after he passes away. The only way for that to happen under retirement rules is for the two of them to get married.

At least that’s the gist of what he said. Once I realized that he was talking about marrying his own adopted daughter, I had trouble hearing anything else. It’s none of my business if he is or is not legally able to marry his own adopted daughter, but that’s the questions that began to preoccupy my mind throughout the rest of the meeting. As far as the retirement system is concerned, if he can show a marriage certificate, he can add his wife (adopted daughter or not) to his health care coverage and he can choose to leave her a survivor benefit in the case of his death. It’s not up to me or the retirement system to answer the legality of marrying one’s own adopted daughter. Still, I found I had to look it up after The Young Mr. Grace left my office.

I went to trusty old Google and typed, “Is it legal to marry your adopted daughter?” Trusty old Google didn’t do too well in answering that question. The top results were from sites like Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers and I instantly felt like I was being judged by the entire internet community, even though I was not the one who had asked the question originally. Many of the responses to the original question were along the lines of, “HELL NO”, “pervert!”, or “You must be sick!” For fear of being tracked by Google and labeled as a pervert, I was tempted to revise my search to include the phrase, “this is for someone else, not me.” I gave up on trying to find the actual answer to the question and found that to find the true answer, I would probably have to consult an attorney. Well, that’s not going to happen any time soon. I suppose I’ll just have to wait it out and periodically go back and look at Young Mr. Grace’s account to see if he was able to successfully add his adopted daughter wife to his health care coverage.

In my defense

Jeff — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:47:28 +0000

Oh Seymour, you poor dog.

Yes, Seymour spends most of his day in his kennel. In my defense, even when Kylie or I are home and the kennel door is open, Seymour is more likely to be in his kennel than out. He prefers the comfort of lying in his blanket, which is in the kennel. I’ve tried keeping the blanket outside of the kennel, but he tends to move it around so much that I’ve accidentally stepped on him more than once. Yes, I’ve stepped on him, but when he’s in that blanket he’s virtually undetectable.

Yes, I have been known to force Seymour to stand out in the cold rain or snow until he finally decides to do his business. In my defense, although Seymour tends to act like a cat, he is not litter trained. He’s also the wimpiest dog known to man when it comes to rain. If it is raining, has been raining and sometimes just looks like it might rain, Seymour will refuse to go outside. What would you do, let him use your floor as a bathroom? I doubt it. You’d be just like me, you’d push him out the door (gently of course) and do everything you can to encourage him to relieve himself. Yes, it’s true that Seymour has a pink raincoat with hot pink hearts on it. If he wants to act like a little baby girl in the rain, he will dress the part.

Yes, Seymour is forced to sleep in his kennel with the door closed at night. In my defense, due to his sometime reluctance to go to the bathroom outside, if he is not kept in his kennel at night, he WILL use the floor instead. I learned this the hard way. Also, I’d rather not have to listen to Seymour and the cat getting into one of their fights during the night.

Yes, Seymour has ugly little bumps on his skin. OK, this one is annoying, but in my defense, the vet has said these are common and it’s basically just a clogged pour. He had some sort of term for them, but I don’t remember. Besides, I Googled it and it seems that they are indeed common. I guess that’s the disadvantage of having a short haired dog, the fur doesn’t cover up those unsightly skin blemishes. Next time I’ll consider a dog with longer fur, but them I’d have to deal with shedding.

January Allinn Smith

Jeff — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 15:28:46 +0000

This is my new niece, January, so named because she was born in January. Her parents, my brother Xan and sister-in-law Stephanie, recently adopted her. They live in Florida in the Naples area (way outside the outerbelt) and fortunately they have a big house, this is their fifth child! It won’t be long before they have their own reality show.

The world can never have too many Smiths!

Madge attacks Seymour with her laser eyes

Jeff — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 02:16:53 +0000

A New Beginning

Jeff — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:51:59 +0000

I was recently asked by a co-worker if I still had my blog. I replied that I do still have a blog, but that I haven’t updated it many months. I then remembered that I had also not paid the monthly bill, so I quickly checked it out on my phone and found that it was indeed shut down. I’ve switched over to a much less expensive blog, which also allowed me to transfer my insidetheouterbelt domain name for a mere $12 per year. If you’re not technically savvy, that means there is no need for you to update your bookmarks (that’s “favorites” for you people who still use Internet Explorer.)

Speaking of being technically savvy, I thought I was, until I started trying to figure out the Twitter app on my Droid phone. For some reason, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to follow a new person directly from my phone. I think I did it once, by accident, then after that I couldn’t figure it out again. This Twitter app seems to have been designed by some diabolical genius (or complete asshole) who is intent on making everyone else feel inferior.

This Twitter fascination (or re-fascination, since I’ve had an unused account for quite some time) began with the recent Charlie Sheen madness. There, I’ve done what 99% of all other bloggers have done recently. I’ve added one more “Charlie Sheen” keyword hit to internet searches worldwide. I did in fact briefly “follow” the craziest Sheen for awhile. I was even having his tweets sent to me by text. My following of Charlie Sheen on Twitter lasted less than 24 hours. It took just one text at 2:00 AM for me to decide to unfollow that wackadoo. Do I really need to be pulled from a pleasant sleep by a text from Charlie Sheen’s Twitter account just so I can hear him say once again that he is “winning?” I think not.

Aside from the non-intuitive Twitter app on my HTC Incredible, I love everything about that phone. It was an excellent birthday gift (thanks Kylie.) It even has a wordpress app, so perhaps I’ll be updating my blog more frequently. One could only hope.

See you soon?