Throughout the week I called IHSS to no avail.  I was sorry I told the Judge that I hadn't requested advanced payment, as I recollected how many, many times I had done this.  I knew that several times in the long past I had inquired about the possibility of advanced payment, I was put off, so I guess that constitutes not officially or legally asking for it.

By Friday afternoon, I was giving up again trying to reach them, so I decided to call the IHSS Ombudsman listed on a contact sheet provided by Ms. Mason.

The young woman who answered had trouble communicating, and so she put me on hold.  Finally another voice came on the line and they asked a lot of questions and seemed genuinely concerned.  They also indicated that they would take care of it.

About an hour later, Ms. Mason called because she had been contacted by someone else about this problem.  She was greatly concerned why I had not talked to her supervisor Mr. Tutujian.  Then she proceeded to grill me as to why I need advanced payment.  After hearing my explanation, she said that she would fax this request to Ms. Scully and Mr. Miles and that they would be acting on it the following week.