Tomorrow we'll be up and headed east. It is my granddaughter's first communion. Of course we will be there for it. I have a cross that is exactly like the cross that hung in her aunts' bedrooms, and of course there is the charm necklace that I'm excited for her to receive. One of the charms honors her special day. Another is her birthstone. Another is a ballerina, One is a small heart engraved with 'sister'. The last is her initial. A celebration of all that she is and all that she is becoming.
When I called to talk to my daughter-in-law today, I heard a little voice in the background crowing "HI GRANDMA!!!" Shocked me spitless. Needless to say, she's picked up some crazy language skills since I saw them in September. Of course she has two gifts as well.
Tim hunted today, and I took his lunch up. I wanted to spend time with the kittens, and I'm glad that I did. Today was a big day. Spoon feeding them seems to have been the thing that brought them all around. A few minutes of that, and then I put their bowl down and they crowd in, purring and twitching their tails as they lap their food up with gusto.
I've noticed that they're paying less and less attention to me, and more and more attention to their food, so today, on the spur of the moment, I slowly reached out and stroked Sigh. He never stopped eating. So I petted him, right down his back. He did not seem to mind. I probably got a good dozen pets in as he continued eating.
Emboldened by that, I reached out my other hand and gave Possum a pet. He quickly jumped back, but interestingly enough, he sat watching me closely. So I reached out my hand. Quick as a wink, he got up, came over to me and slipped his body beneath my hand, arching his back and letting my hand go down his spine. He then turned around and did it again. He made several circles back to my hand, and then, without warning, he lay down on his side, and playfully reached up and batted at my hand with one velvet paw.
It was such a great moment!
I tried it with Tiger and got three pets in and got myself growled at. But he did not run away either, so we'll call that a win.
Minnie? The pooper will take food from my hand, but she will not allow herself to be petted. I did noticed that she was watching my interaction with Possum and Sigh very closely though.
I'm going to hit the hay early tonight so that I can get up and get ready to hit the road tomorrow. It will be a five hour drive. We do not have to leave early, because my daughter in law needs to take a nap before she goes to work tomorrow night, so we'll let her and my granddaughter have a quiet and restful afternoon. We'll arrive just in time to meet the oldest girl at the bus stop.
I'm looking forward to it more than words can say. I will catch you all on the other side.
Sigh was outside. I saw him, but he seemed to be enjoying himself and was not hungry, but Possum, Tiger, and Minnie were happy to see me. The three kittens all ate from my fingers and for the first time, Possum allowed himself to be petted. He returned to get a brief pet multiple times and rubbed against my hand.
I felt like that was a big deal.
Tim called customer service this morning. I did not have to be involved.
I told you I wrapped some Christmas gifts. I was pleased. Here is a tiny bit of heartbreak. Many years back, in the after Christmas sales, I bought three large rolls of curling ribbon, in three colors. I have been using that ribbon for years, and every year, it gives me the tiniest satisfaction that I'm still using it. I always wonder how many Christmas futures those rolls will give me.
Long story short, I opened the Christmas trunk that holds all my ribbon and my gift bags and my Christmas wrap and my ornaments...and I cannot find those spools of ribbon anywhere.
It's a Christmas tradition, dammit.
Late edit: After a good long search, 24 hours later, I found them. They were in a bag in the gift closet. So, tradition is restored. It's a stupid thing, but I bought those ribbons when we still lived in the big house in the woods, and that is 15 years ago. (And yes...they are big spools.)
I started out the day with a call to the bank to sort that happy horse poop out. The woman was very nice, very helpful, and it worked out just fine.
One box ticked, although it did take two phone calls, two phone calls which miraculously connected me to the same person. She was working at home. I could hear her toddler in the background. I think that is so great that parents have this option!
I would have loved to work customer service at home instead of in a call center. Everybody complained about the customers. I really was okay with the customers. It was the supervisors. They listened in on your calls and they picked you apart. I took a huge ding once, because I had a very angry customer who was yelling his head off at me. I mean, he was hot and the yelling went on for a while. I finally said, "Listen. I know that you're mad, but this is not helpful. I make you this promise. I will listen, and by the end of the phone call, we will reach a satisfactory resolution to all of this."
He stopped short. He apologized. I accepted his apology, we discussed the issue. We reached a resolution. At the end of the phone call, I said, "So, is this worked out to your satisfaction?" He said that it was. I thanked him, he thanked me and the phone call was done.
I was immediately called into the supervisor conference room. I failed that call. Why? Because I had interrupted him at the beginning of the phone call to tell him that while I understood his anger, it wasn't getting the problem solved. I said, "But...I resolved the situation. He hung up the phone satisfied with the service." It didn't matter. That was the kind of stuff that made the job so difficult.
I didn't mind customers. Even the mad ones. The only one that I ever transferred was a southern man that, for whatever reason, decided I was black. He was a racist. I refused to verify my race, and he got increasingly foul. I put him on hold, called the supervisor, and told him that I couldn't handle him. She handled his situation, whatever it was, and she came over to tell me that he had been perfectly nice. (Of course.) He couldn't understand why I had been so short with him. Just shockingly rude.
I'm sure that incident got recorded in their little book of my sins as well. They kept them on all of us.
But I digress. This bank woman handled my problem quickly and efficiently, both times, and her little baby cooed in the back ground. It was a happy call.
I wrapped Christmas presents today. I needed a break, and it was a wonderful one.
I helped Tim with the porch on the new house.
I played with the kittens. I feed them canned cat food from a spoon, as part of the taming process. Sigh is the boldest, and will take food from my fingers, eat from a spoon, and climb over my legs. I petted him several times today. The other kittens watch him closely as he interacts, and then they get brave too. Except for Minnie. She eats from my hand, but still bolts if I move suddenly.
Then it was discovered, coming home, that Tim's browser did not work on his phone. Every time that I tried to look something up, a message popped up. They needed to verify my Verizon account. I don't HAVE a Verizon account. We use Straight Talk. I died a little inside, because I knew that I was going to sit down with customer service again.
Have I not suffered enough???? (Evidently the answer to that was no.)
So I sat down with Tim's phone, and before it was over, I was using my phone to talk to customer service while they tried to sort out his. We went through two procedures which did not work, and I got a sinking feeling. But god love her, the girl persevered and I kept patient and followed what seemed like an endless series of steps. Finally, she said, "Okay. Shut the phone off." I did. After a few minutes she told me to try to search for a youtube video, which I did. It worked. The funny part was, when it worked, she squealed like she'd won the lottery. "I'm so happy!" she said, and several times she repeated that. I think she was afraid. Maybe she had supervisors grading her phone calls too. In case they were, I said, "You did a great job, and I thank you for your patience with me." She said, "I'm just so happy!" in her thick Indian accent.
And half way across the world, I was happy too.
Furthermore, I got access to Tim's facebook account which he hasn't had since his phone died. We have two step verification and they were sending the code to his dead phone. I submitted the new information to access his account. It took two days to get their link to work. But that's done.
I also got his e-mail set up on his phone.
He's well and truly impressed with me right now. Me? I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky....
It's only Monday, and I'm done. I am so done. The email with the UPS label never arrived. We drove a half hour to the UPS Store to give them the label information that was supposed to allow them to print the label out there. They could not do so because it showed that the label was sent to me! I spent 4 hours on the phone with customer service. It involved 3 phone calls and one chat.
One of the questions that was asked, "What is the most often called number on your husband's phone?"
For heaven's sake! Why on earth would that even matter? But she waited, and so I gave her my phone number.
"I am sorry," she said. "That's not the right number."
"Surely I am in the top ten," I said.
Guess I wasn't.
Anyways, back home, I tried to sort it out via chat. Could not. I was transferred to a manager, who said, "Why do you need a label? If you bought the phone yesterday, just take it back to the store you purchased it from."
"I can do that? It wasn't even offered as an option. She told me I had to return it to you."
I was assured that I could.
So I did.
I spent another hour on the phone tonight trying to figure out why the minutes weren't applied to my account. The young man sorted that out in pretty short order, and transferred me to his supervisor who credited our account for the minutes that the woman charged us for last night, which we couldn't apply to the phone that had been returned because it did not work.
I was wrung out. I hate dealing with stuff like that, but I got it done. I handed Tim his phone. He said, "You'll have to teach me how to work it."
I said, "Later. I need a break. You do some figuring out for a while."
I checked the e-mail to make sure that I had a receipt for the credit and saw that the Online banking had suspended access to our account. I just spent forever sorting that out LAST month.
"Tim," I said wearily. "Have you been putting in the wrong password for the online banking?"
"Yeah," he said.
"Remember that we had to change the password last month? And that I wrote it down for you..."
He looked at me.
I have not got one more bit of patience left in me.
Today, we went to gather up our wallpaper supplies from the new build and haul everything down to the renovation to put up the anaglypta (Thanks for thatAndrew! I do so love a new word!)
I went down to feed the kittens. It was the first I've seen them in several days. We have been working on the renovation during the day, and then Tim feeds them when he goes down to bow hunt in the evening. We ran to Walmart to pick up a replacement phone for Tim. I also picked up canned cat food and a bag of kitty treats. I had been working on getting them used to hand feeding, and I wanted to get back to that.
I got out of the car calling "Here kitty kitty," and they all kitty-kittied. By the time that I got the garage unlocked, they were meowing and swarming. I sat down and measured out their food and added the can of cat food and milk and stirred and stirred. I take my time stirring because I want them to come to me, and they did. They start eating while I am still stirring and talking to them. When I finished, I sat right there on cross legged on the floor, the pan still within easy reach and four purring cats lapping up milk as fast as they can lap.
After a time, when they've eaten their fill, they step away from the bowl, licking their little smackers and cleaning their little faces. That's when I open the treats. They do love those treats and they recognize the crinkling that the bag makes. Sigh feeds readily from my hand, and Possum (the cat, not the marsupial) will come in for his share after watching Sigh for a while. Tiger is wary but will eventually get there. Minnie? She watches me like a hawk, and she wants the treats soooooo bad. Will she take the proffered treat from my fingers. No. No she will not. I always throw her a couple so she knows what's at stake, but although she is the largest of the kittens, she's also a cowardly custard.
It was a nice little half hour with them, and then it was time to head out. We drove back into town and started the wallpapering. So far we are quite pleased with how it looks. If it holds up as nicely as it looks, we've found the perfect product.
An interesting thing: There's a young man who is building shelters for feral cats. People have really stepped up. Donations of straw for bedding. I had a pile of styrofoam insulation sheets to donate. When I saw a woman was giving away an unused roll of mover's packing, I contacted her and explained about the young man's project. She has two formerly feral strays, so she was on board. She lives across the river from me, and so I told her I'd be right over to get it.
When she sent me her address, I noted that her last name was a familiar one. When I got there, I discovered that my name was familiar to her, as well. She knew Tim's family. I said, "Well, then, I will ask you about yours. Many years ago, my Army recruiter was Wayne Shreve." She looked so delighted. "That's my husband's father." We laughed at the coincidence. I really liked Sgt Shreve. He was a dandy. He had a batch of kids and he was quite proud of his family. I was away in the army when my mom wrote me to say that his wife and three of his children had been killed when their car was hit by a train at an unmarked crossing. I sent him a letter of condolence. It was a shock just a few years back when I saw his obituary. I hadn't realized he was still alive and in the area. He had remarried and his picture showed a happy man. I was glad for that.
Anyways, she invited me to sit down and we had quite a chin wag in the warm sun. It was an unexpected delight.
This evening, I began the process of activating Tim's phone. I got it hooked up to the WiFi but because the old phone did not work any longer, I needed to call customer service. I was on the phone for nearly an hour and a half, following the instructions. She had the new IMEI number. The new SIM. She had the old SIM, but to verify the account information on the new phone, I needed to put the old SIM in the new phone. I followed her instructions. It took forever to pry the back of the phone off. but I began to notice that she would tell me where to find the SIM card, and it wasn't there. She was telling me 'landmarks' to look for on the phone. They were not there either. She said, "It should be the same as your previous phone." I stopped aghast. "But they're not the same phone. We got a different model this time because my husband preferred my phone."
Long pause.
"They're not the same?"
"Um...no..."
Long story short? Our new phone is now broken. "No worries," she said. "It is under warranty, and they will send me a new phone. Or they will, just as soon as I turn in the old phone.
"No worries", she assured me yet again, "they will pay for shipping." (As they should....)
The problem is that I'm still waiting for the UPS ticket to hit my inbox. She told me it would be just a few minutes. After 15 minutes, I tried to verify the e-mail address. She assured me it was correct without reading it back, and that I would just have to wait for it to arrive, and then I'd need to put the label on the box and drop it off with UPS. They should receive the phone within 3-5 business days, and then they will send it back and I can expect to receive it 3-5 business days after that. She reminded me that it all hinged on how quickly I got the phone sent back to her.
"Well, I am glad to send it back quickly, but I still haven't gotten the ticket that I'm supposed to be receiving."
"No worries," she assured me yet again. And she told me to write down a number. She said, "This is your ticket number. If you don't receive your e-mail, just give that to UPS and they can print the ticket for you." And she provided me with that number.
I said, "The problem is that I live in a small town. We do not have a local UPS. We take our shipments to a store, and they hold them. UPS picks up from there, but they don't have the ability to print out a shipping label or anything like that. They simply take the package.
Long pause. "No worries," she said. "You will receive that e-mail."
It's been over an hour and I still have not received that e-mail. No worries. Tim and I will drive across the state line and go directly to the UPS Store first thing tomorrow morning. Frustrating!
Side note, after the portapotty disaster this summer, I too bought a different model phone. I too could not use my phone to transfer the information. I too had to call customer service. I had no problem making that switch.
Did you hear the latest tRUMP craziness? That he went to Latrobe PA for a rally.
This clip is just part of the 12 minute talk about Arnold's manhood.
Today, I was out and about, albeit cautiously. I took along the zyrtec, just in case, but it was not needed. Who knows what instigated yesterday, but it was a baddie. It is interesting to me that in the last couple years, it seems like I have had increasing problems with allergies. I don't know why that would be.
Tim's been having increasing problems with his phone. The charging plug doesn't fit tightly any more, and so I sat down with you-tube, studied the problem and the antidote. A couple 'plackers' and I was pulling dust and dirt out. We got a can of compressed air, and voila! The cord fit nicely. Problem solved! Except for one tiny thing...now the phone won't take a charge at all. (Yay me!)
So...there is a new phone in Tim's future, and because we are dinosaurs, we are dreading it. He asked for one exactly like mine, because he was always more comfortable with my phone than his. I'm going to talk him into getting a case for it. I blame plaster dust and pocket lint for the failure of this phone.
This is Comet A3. I think the picture is hilarious. It is entitled, "Oh no. Not again."
We drove to Olean today to talk to a specialist about the very old plaster walls in the renovation. Because the house had a huge hole in the roof, there was water damage on the second floor and we needed to do some structural repairs in the attic, replacing beams and the like. Let us agree to say that the house was a bit damper than it should have been. But it has the old fashioned plaster walls that really are like rock. What do you do with those? Upstairs, we have been drywalling directly over top of those concrete-like walls, mostly because the ceilings needed to be redone anyway due to water damage.
Down stairs, though, with the coffered ceilings and the beautiful leaded glass and hardwood floors and all, there was not any real water damage anywhere but the kitchen which we did gut right down to the studs. The rest of it though, those lovely solid hard as rock walls...except for some cracking. We wanted to talk about someone about how to do those up nicely while still hanging on to those perfectly good walls...well. Except for some cracking.
Turns out this place was in a very old building, and they were great. They had the same sort of limestone plaster walls, and they were able to show us exactly what they did. Their walls looked very nice. They used a paintable base wallpaper, with the very slightest of texture. They painted it and it looks like the walls of an old cottage. Kind of a limewash paint effect:
Although we are using a different color, more like a light copper color to coordinate with the dark wood trim and the fireplace.
We are not completely sold on this color and may change our minds before it is all done.
In any case, that was today. Tim went hunting, and there have been no signs of the little possums today, which doesn't exactly break my heart any, although the little fellow seemed quite comfortable trotting himself out and getting a nibble, and then trotting himself back in as Tim stood there gaping in disbelief. He had time to call me out to take a look. The little guy leisurely ate as we both watched. I find myself wondering if maybe he got separated from his family somehow, and is on his own. Maybe it is not a family of them. Maybe it is just one.
Maybe.
But in any case, we need to figure out how to handle this situation.
So...that was today.
The week coming up might bring us some very welcome news. We are keeping our fingers crossed, but I don't want to jinx anything until the deal is done.
Not much to note. Yesterday was the least productive day that I have had in a long time. I walked out the door, got in the car, and before we got to the renovation, I was having an allergy attack of epic proportions. I have no idea what caused it. I took a zyrtec, but couldn't stop sneezing, my head filled with snot. I couldn't hear, and tears poured from my eyes.
Tim said, "Well, I might as well take you back home," and so he did.
My nose was doing a marathon.
Did you know that Vikings kept House Bears?
Just a little thing you learn when you're stuck and home, trying to keep up with your nose.
Take that, Vikings. We have feral cats.
Anyways, great discovery of the day? We have a fucking family of possums living in the little side room off the mudroom. Where Tim's large air compressor is stored. One of the littles toddled right out and helped himself to some cat food, and then walked right back in there. While Tim was standing right there watching him. Argh. So now we've got to figure that one out. It would be easier to keep that door tightly shut, wouldn't it? Tim and I have had that discussion. You can't really shut the door if you've got a family of possums who have taken up residence there.
So that's the exciting news of the day.
17 more days. I cannot wait for this election to be over.
If you've got the heart (and patience) for it, listen to the Bloomberg interview.
I could not sleep last night. I went to bed at a reasonable time, tossed and turned, got up, went back to bed at midnight. Woke up shortly after 1. Tried to will myself to lay quietly. Woke up at about 3. Wondered if a steaming hot shower would help. Except that I was too tired to get up and take one. I was awake at 6. Back to bed. Got up at 8.
Tim was also awake a great deal of the night. This is his second night of 'wide awake-itis'. He believes that covid has disrupted his sleep patterns.
I don't know what is disrupting mine. It certainly can't have anything to do with the six dark chocolate expresso beans I had earlier in the afternoon.
The view outside my office window. That tree was so brilliantly lit. I left the room to grab my phone but the light had begun to fade in just that short time. Still, it's a hint of what I saw for a brief and glorious moment.
No more tomato sandwiches for breakfast. At least none with garden tomatoes. They're done for the year.
(I will be brave).
My post cards are done. I bought the last of the stamps today, and affixed them, and sent up a hope that somehow, they will make a difference. They are rubber banded together and ready to be mailed on the 26th.
I did not listen to the Fox Interview, but from what I read, Harris held her own. In my opinion, it took a lot of guts to do an interview with Bret Baier. DJT couldn't even bring himself to do an interview with 60 Minutes, because he felt that they owed him an apology over something that had not been said. That and the fact that they were fact checking. If you're going to pull out of something because you're going to be fact checked, well, to me that says plainly that you were headed into with every intention of lying your head off.
Tomatoes are done. Postcards are done. I most fervently hope that tRUMP is done too.
I received two more mailings urging me to register to vote. I figured it out. These are arriving to 'Debby'. I'm registered under my full name which is 'Deborah'. So Duty to America is wasting money on me, and I'm okay with that.
I have been hit twice with flyers which come via USPS, and warn me that I am not registered to vote, and that I need to register by October 21st.
The thing is that I am registered to vote.
(You can all check your status by going to https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote
You would click on the 'i' for Check on Voter Registration Status
You will be asked to pick your state.
You are given a choice to verify via your name or to enter your driver's license number. Enter the requested information and the very first note is "active" (or I suppose "not active" if action is required.
If you live in Pennsylvania, you are only required to register once, with no need to register again unless you change your address, your name, or your political affiliation.)
I just wanted to make sure everyone knew how to check your status, so forgive the side track. Anyhow, I quickly verified that I was still active, and I was. I verified that Tim was still active. And he is.)
Once that was done, I read the information on the mailers, which was fascinating. Right at the bottom of the cards, it tells your that Duty To America is not affiliated with any government agency. The wording of it made me suspicious, and I discovered that yes, it is a right wing PAC.
This is a race that is being run on a huge amount of misinformation, and it is being done with intention. Make sure that you are registered to vote. If you are registered to vote, ignore any texts, mailings or phone messages that try to tell you that you are not.
You all know how I am voting. I'm not voting for this.
Tim and I went over and worked on the Wayne St. house today. Now is not a good time to be buying any new supplies for the new build, between property taxes and insurance and whatnot. So we changed it up and worked on finishing up some projects at the renovation. We had the materials for that already bought.
Now, we call this house 'the hoarder's house'. We got a lot of the things out of there, but there is still a ton of stuff left. One of the things that I did today was to go through old record albums. They have so much old stuff dating back to the forties. A lot of Broadway musical soundtracks. Mantovani, Mancini, Glenn Miller, Count Basie and other orchestras that scored old classic movies. It didn't stop. Chubby Checker. A lot of albums that seemed to be collected under a theme "Girls in Music" which was a album of 50s songs that were titled with girl's names. Just so much stuff. Remember Barry Sadler? The Ballad of the Green Berets? My grandparents had that album and played it a lot. It was quite different from their regular diet of polka music. If you want to read a sad story, read about Barry Sadler. Died at 49, after being shot in the head in Guatemala. A few years earlier, he'd shot a friend between the eyes in a dispute over a woman. He also wrote like 23 popular novels. Who knew?
Anyways, I keep thinking that these albums would probably be worth something to someone, but I'd have to find that someone. I gave away no less that 200 albums already, and am still finding more, these in an upstairs bedroom that contains three irons. One ironing board. Two rotary phones, 4 hair dryers, the old kind that came with their little cases which held the motor and there was a hose and a bubble cap sort of thing that you would put on your head. We already hauled out 4 sewing machines and two of the newer irons. I mean, this house has a lot of shit.
I have boxes of mid-century mod decor that was bought and never unboxed. Brand new clocks and dated hanging lights, and clocks and wall sconces. Brand new appliances, still in their boxes. I mean, a trash compactor. Who even hears about them these days? But we have a brand new one, in an unopened box.
We've got the matching punch bowl too and the short glasses which I discovered are called low ball glasses and used for cocktails.
Yee haw.
It's the never ending job, really. We gave the furniture away to someone who flips furniture, and while the house is emptier, it is not yet empty. We found a family member, and were able to ship out two truckloads of family photos and movies, along with the projector to play them on, and a screen. (We've still got another if anyone needs one.) Sometimes I think that house might never be empty.
But we have found treasure there as well. A suitcase full of photos and tintypes, as well as pictures from Paris after the destruction of WWI, and a souvenir black velvet banner sent home to some soldier's mother. Even a Victorian death photo. But their are no names on the pictures, so we haven't got a clue who these people are.
We found a set of pearls in a china closet. Old trolley tokens on the fireplace. We haven't had a trolley in town for a hundred years. Silver certificates folded up and stuck under a lamp. Calendars saved that date back to the civil war. They are so pretty. I'd like to save the pictures on some of them. Old magazines from the '30s.
I like history, but...really. What do you do with all this stuff? After a day in this house, you will whole heartedly buy into the whole Swedish Death Cleaning thing. I guarantee it.
I did get some things out of the house. I gathered up all the old fashioned wooden hangers and brought them home. Once cleaned up they will be nice for Tim's heavy hunting coats. There is a cast iron clothes rack, a pretty thing. I'm going to paint that black and put it in the garden at the new house to hold a couple hanging pots.
But. That was today. And tomorrow, we will head over and get back to it.
I just want to retire. Really. I just want to be done with all this work. I am starting to think it will not happen.
Oh friends. Sad days. In my fridge, I have one last vine ripened tomato from Albert. Just the one. I'd bought 8 or 9 the last time I stopped in. I can't remember because he was telling me that this was the last of the produce for the summer and that he was closing up shop. I was telling him that I really was grateful for the produce over the summer. I bought A LOT from him, and he was always grateful for the business. I tried to tell him that there was no other place that could match him for price OR quality. I was grateful for him. And while we were thanking each other, he was saying, "Here...you might as well take these and, this one has a blemish..." tossing in apples and tomatoes and onions.
It's like that when I stop in there. I go for one thing specifically, and walk out of there with a more than I ever intended to buy, but it is all good stuff.
Anyways, so there it is. Every morning since tomatoes started coming on, I've been having a thick slice of tomato on toast, with a smear of mayonnaise and a hearty sprinkling of fresh ground black pepper. Every morning.
Now I'm down to the last of it. I can get tomatoes from Aldi's, of course, but it is not the same. They are a whole different texture, not allowed to ripen on the vine. They are not the tomatoes of summer.
I figure that I've got 3, maybe 4 days out of this tomato, then I'll just have to admit the truth. Summer is over.
I think that we had a hard frost Thursday morning down at the new house (it was fine in town). But my basil is black. Presto, no pesto. My morning glories are wilted and shriveled and no longer glorious. Looks like they're done for the season too.
We have three days coming up, with the highs only reaching the 40s and the lows in the 30s. They are rainy days, all of them, and there may be some snow.
Yesterday, Tim and I stopped in to a fast food joint for a quick bite to eat. As we ate, I listened to the music, and realized that I knew none of the songs. None of them.
I continued to eat as I listened, wondering when did that all change. My youngest daughter and I used to listen to music. We had some common tastes. I used to be cool. (Do not ask her, though. She will assure you that I was never cool, and she will laugh herself silly that I ever, for a moment, thought I might be.)
As I ate my sandwich in a thinking sort of way, I remembered the two of us in a car listening to a song about fireflies. I tried to remember that song, but it is hard to conjure up a half remembered song when another song is playing in the background. I gave up.
When we were done eating, I asked Tim if he would mind if we hit a thrift store on our way out of town, which he agreed to.
We walked into the store, and I had scarcely begun to look around when I heard a song playing on their intercom.
I recognized it immediately, and stopped browsing to listen, with a secret smile, remembering.
I love those little coincidences, those little happy synchronicities.
A member of my family is dealing with metastatic cancer, stage 4. Chemo had to be halted as she deals with a systemic infection.
I look at her precarious situation, and somehow it seems shocking because she is someone I know. Because she is a contemporary. Because we're still dealing with the ramifications of Tim's cancer. It's starting to sort out, but it has been a huge jolt in our marriage. Today we came home from the new house. We weren't doing a lot of talking. A lot of thinking though.
I read Tim a text from my sister. I said, "It's just such a shocking thing."
Tim said, "I know it. To think you needed to have your gall bladder out and then find out all of this..."
I said, "Yeah..."
I said, "Do you ever think about it? I do sometimes. I mean, someone is going to go first."
He didn't answer.
It's morbid, I know, and I feel an idiot, but it is where my head is at.
But we cannot know the future, and I suppose that's a good thing.
It's cold here today. After a high of 54 degrees, it is now 39. It is definitely fall. I discovered that when we are at the new house, we can hear the wind as it rushes past the house. For whatever reason, we don't hear that sound here in town, but we did when we lived in the woods, and I loved that sound...because it reminded a middle aged mother of being a child, laying snug and warm in my bed and listening to the wind howl during a winter storm.
The years have flown by. I am a gray haired grandma now. The wind blows just as it always has, and for a moment, I allow myself to go back to a time when I was young enough that dying had not yet occurred to me.
Goodness, what a state of mind! I shiver, and it is not from the cold.
I grab the cat food, and the milk from the fridge and head down to the garage to feed the kittens. They are glad to see me and hungry, and dart around excitedly while I mix up their food. I give them an extra can of cat food, grateful to be able to do some small kindness in this cold season.
This evening, I found another Christmas gift and placed my order. Winter is cold, but it does have its comforts.
Now that Tim has moved his truck back into the garage, the kittens no longer have half the garage to frolic around on and keep their distance. We have a small space behind the truck. I sit on the floor and mix up their dinner, talking away to them. They really are getting bolder and bolder, and the cat treats have been quite a motivator.
Yesterday, Tiger and Sigh did not appear at all, and I was a bit worried about them, but today, they all showed up. They mill around rubbing against the stacked lumber and purring loudly while I talk to them, and usually, there are one or two darting in to grab little tastes of dinner while I'm mixing.
Their dish is probably no more than a foot and a half away from where I sit, and my proximity doesn't seem to bother them as much as it used to. Today, Tiger actually stared at me for some time, finally approaching me to sniff at my shoe, and then to 'boop' my hand with his forehead a couple of times. Sigh came over to sit by me, and almost had a heart attack when I sneezed. All of them were very interested in the treat packet in my lap.
So...that felt like progress.
My oldest grandaughter is having her first communion at the end of the month, and I was trying to find something special to commemorate the day. One night when I couldn't sleep, I got to thinking about charm bracelets and how popular they were when I was a kid. I always wanted one, but luxuries were few and far between in those days.
I got up and headed off to do some googling, and found the cutest little charm necklaces. They were not so expensive that she wouldn't be able to wear it to school if she wanted. I had a good time looking through all the charms, finally selecting an initial charm, a birthstone, a cross to mark her communion, a ballerina because she does love her ballet. and a heart with 'sister' on it.
It's always kind of dicey when you buy something like that on line, but it arrived today and I was very pleased to see that it is worth every penny. Nothing 'cheap' about it. I think that she will love it, and I plan to let her select five more charms for Christmas. I see several that are fitting.
We received a package in the mail from the local police department. It is about the broken window. The boys who broke the window have been charged. We have a chance to attend the hearing. Neither one of us see the point in that. We did ask for the decision of the court to be forwarded to us, and we did request a written apology. We don't really expect restitution. I mean these are kids that have done hundreds of dollars in damages, to multiple houses. They'll never pay it off.
I discovered that one of the boys has a facebook page. In the midst of all the crazy things that kids post, there is one post he wrote to his father who had left the family and started a new one. It seems that the young man had waited for his father to call him for his birthday, and the call never came.
That struck me as sad.
Remember the guy that ran the red light over the summer and hit my car?
Tim bought the car from the insurance company. He had to get a salvage title for it, and then he bought the parts he needed to rebuild the front end. It is done now. He will have to get an enhanced inspection to verify that it is road worthy. I think he did a good job.
He's a clever fellow.
I, at least, was clever enough to know that when I met a good mechanic, I should marry him.
Tim went up to work on the house yesterday. I stayed at home. Laundry. Cleaning. Made a pot of spaghetti sauce.
I got a call about a half hour after he left. He'd staked down the trap before we left and baited it with cat food. There was a raccoon in it this morning. I usually am the person who takes the animal to its new home and opens the door and watches him waddle off into the sunset. Or something like that.
This time, Tim was on his own. He asked me a few questions, and then disconnected.
He called later, a little amazed at how easy it all was.
"So the raccoon wasn't upset?" I asked.
"No," he answered. "He watched me. Never made a sound. I put the blanket over the trap and picked him up. I took him to the top of ------- Hill and let him go in the woods. He headed for the trees and never looked back."
"Good," I said.
"The raccoon was a lot more tame than your kittens," he observed.
I am new to all this medicare stuff, but here is something that I don't understand. I received a call from my supplementary insurance. They wanted to send someone out to my house to assess my health situation.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because they want to make sure that all my health needs are being addressed," I was told.
Now...wouldn't that be between me and my doctor? HIPPA and all of that? Why would I want to discuss things like that with a stranger coming to my home? So I asked that.
I was assured that they would share all this important information with my doctor.
I said, "I guess I still don't understand why I need a third party to assess me when I have a doctor to assess me..."
They said, "Well, we can do this via zoom, if you'd rather."
I said, "I'm not comfortable with any of this. I don't understand the point." I turned them down, and I don't think they knew what to make of it.
I've been pondering this ever since the call, and what I've come up with is this: They are matching my health information up with other agencies, i.e., if a person is diabetic, they can sell that information to agencies selling diabetic supplies. Or if a person has mobility issues, they can sell that information to businesses who are marketing medical equipment.
I will bet that businesses would pay a lot of money for targeted business opportunities.
Dunno.
Anyone else heard of this?
LATE EDIT: Wendy led me off on a very interesting bit of reading. I cannot access the Wall Street Journal, but one of the days that Tim goes hunting this week, I'm going to scoot over to the library and read it there. But this article explains that article:
When I was growing up, my doctor still made house calls when we were too sick to get to his office. But he stopped visiting people at home long before he retired. Both he and his patients realized they were perhaps better served by going to his clean, well-equipped office for whatever care they needed.
So I was more than a little surprised when a woman representing my health insurance plan called to schedule me for a home visit from either a nurse practitioner or physician. I have a Medicare Advantage plan, and I thought I was being offered this visit because the caller assumed I was frail and house-bound. I assured her I could easily get to my doctor's office if I needed to. I'd also just had my annual physical, my immunizations and screenings were up to date, and I felt great. Why would I need a home visit?
The only reason she could give was that the clinician would have more time to spend with me than my own doctor did. The home visit would last 45 minutes to an hour and would include a health history, a physical exam, screenings, and health advice. Since I work full-time, I could schedule the visit for a weekend. And she'd even throw in a $25 Walmart gift card if I completed the exam.
I declined, feeling a little creeped out — especially after checking with my doctor and learning that she knew nothing about this. So I did a little research.
I learned that these visits are legitimate — in fact, over a million patients have signed up for them so far. And I learned that the extra exam had reduced hospitalizations, primarily for patients with diabetes, heart failure, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. But what still puzzled me was why my insurer would want to incur the extra expense of duplicating the exam and tests I had just gotten from my doctor. I don't have any serious conditions and my doctor consistently receives top grades from all the ratings systems.
Dr. Michael McWilliams suggested an answer. As an associate professor of health policy at Harvard Medical School, he understands the arcane regulations that cover how Medicare reimburses my Medicare Advantage plan for the care I get. He told me that each of us covered by these plans is assigned a risk score. As we develop more health problems, our risk score increases. "The home visits conducted by Medicare Advantage plans allow for the capture of more diagnoses, which in turn increases the risk score that adjusts plan payments from Medicare. Generally speaking, the more diagnoses recorded, the higher the payment," Dr. Williams says.
He explains that the risk adjustment system was created to ensure that plans don't enroll only the healthiest patients, who are less likely to run up charges for expensive procedures and hospital stays. To provide an incentive for insurers to cover sicker patients, the plans are paid commensurately more for their care.
I've received two more calls since I first declined the home visit, each more persistent than the last. Now I understand why. If the clinician could diagnose me with a serious health condition, the company could raise my risk score and get a higher Medicare reimbursement each time I visit the doctor.
If you or someone you know is offered a home visit from a Medicare Advantage plan, keep the following in mind:
If you have a serious health condition, the extra care might help you avoid a hospital stay.
The care they provide isn't ongoing. This is the only time you will see the clinician who examines you. The results of the exam and tests will be forwarded to your regular clinician for follow-up.
If you are healthy and the visit results in an increased risk score, you won't have to pay more for your care. But the higher Medicare reimbursement your insurer receives may contribute to the nation's rising health care costs.
You are not obligated to have a home visit — they're completely optional.
I have been really having a time with fruit flies lately, and it has been making me a little crazy, because I haven't really done any large scale vegetable processing for a while now. But I had fruit flies. I was trying to pin down a source, but couldn't. I scrubbed floors and pulled things out to clean behind but I just couldn't get rid of those darn flies. I was starting to worry that they were somehow coming up from a basement drain or something.
Since bugs in the house are a thing with me, it was a bit crazy making.
Today, I pulled the garbage bag out and discovered, much to my shock, that some sort of vegetable matter had evidently fallen down the outside of the garbage bag and to the bottom of the garbage can. When I pulled up the garbage bag, a small cloud of fruit flies flew up.
Well. There's one problem solved. I would probably have figured it out earlier if I had a sense of smell.
We will probably set the 'chop shop' area up in the basement of the new build this weekend. The first day of archery is tomorrow. Tim is not going hunting. In his mind, it is still too warm. We will set up his new meat saw and the stainless steel counters in the corner of the basement. We'll take our freezer down and set it in place at some point.
We will be able to wash the meat, cut the meat, grind the meat if we are making hamburger, wrap the meat, and then immediately pop it into the freezer. Deer processers are getting harder to find, and the cost of processing has increased with every passing year. This will save us about $100 per deer, and is open for anyone in the family to use, should they wish to.
Quite a time back, we'd found a couple of ceiling fans that we both liked. They were on a market place site, and the people were replacing them because they wanted to go with a new look. That's always interesting to me that people just can simply afford to rip expensive stuff out and replace it for no other reason than they are redecorating, but people do, and we've been awfully fortunate to pick up some nice things for very little money. We paid $25 each for these fans, but minimally they sold for $250. (It's hard to tell for sure, because they are a discontinued style). They went with the look we had in mind, and so we brought them home and they've been sitting in the basement waiting to be installed.
The electric has proved to be a right pain in the behind. Tim had wired the house, but it kept blowing the breakers, and he could not figure out why. At first he thought it was a faulty breaker, but replacing the breaker didn't help, and two more went. He tested and tested, and could not figure it out. My brother in law came over and was able to quickly tell him that he'd done the wiring right, a huge relief to Tim. Dave had a suspicion about the electric box out on the pole outside that brings the power to the house from the line. They went outside to do some testing, and there they found the problem. The breaker in THAT box had corroded. It wasn't anything Tim had done wrong. That breaker needed to be replaced.
Tim bought the breaker he needed for that yesterday, and we replaced it. That work is something that always makes me very nervous. You cannot shut that power off like you can to the house while you're working on it, and if you don't know what you're doing, you can electrocute yourself. But all's well that ends well. He changed that out, nobody got fried, and when we came into the house and turned the power back on inside, everything worked just fine. This morning, everything was running just as it should.
So today was the day to hook up the lights. We put up one of those ceiling fans in our bedroom.
We put the other in the living room.
We put up 5 motion detector flood lights outside.
A light went up in the entry way, the kitchen area, the computer nook, the bedrooms and in the cubby where the washer and dryer combo is.
The kittens continue to thrive in the garage. We're saving a fortune on cat food since we've made the place inaccessible to raccoons. Today, I brought along cat treats. I set out a taste for each of them, and they all loved them. But after their taste, I was firm with them. If they wanted more treats, they had to come and take it from my fingers. So far, only Tiger has been brave enough to do that. The others watched a bit enviously as he gobbled down his treat with obvious gusto.
It was a cool day today and I needed a sweater. As we worked, Tim said, "We'll need to bring the furnace up from the old house and put it in the garage." I wondered why. I didn't realize when the excavation work was done, he had them run a gas line to the garage so that he could install a heating system. It will make him comfortable when he works on cars out there, of course, but he wanted to make sure the kittens had a place to get out of the cold this winter.
I don't say anything, but I kind of marvel at this change in him. He is not an animal person. Never has been. But today, we drove home after putting in a day at the new house. Goblin and Houdi were waiting at the back door as usual. Another cat was there too, a new one. Tim said, "His name is Boots." I smiled to myself, and fed them. Made me feel better to know that I'm not the only sucker.
Oh, I forgot. I am feeling better. I find that if I take two aspirin before going to bed, I don't wake up feverish and sweating. I still have a cough and a sore throat. My sister asked me if I had any onion soup mix. "No," I said, "but I do have beef broth and a colander of onions." She suggested making up a pot of French Onion Soup.
I am fond of onion soup, and it felt like that would be good on my throat, so I sliced up two onions and set them to simmer with two cups of broth. I added a heaping tablespoon of garlic for good measure as well. A half hour later, I sat down to a hot mug of soup, and it felt good on my throat. I doubt it is the cure-all that my sister seems to think it will be, but it certainly can't do me any harm.
1 can of diced tomatoes if you don't have fresh to chop in, probably 1 1/2 cup of diced tomatoes.
1 15 ounce can of tomato sauce
1 15 ounce container of beef broth (I generally use a couple cups of water with better than broth)
2 tsp italian seasoning
1 1/2 cups white rice
Saute beef, onion, green pepper and garlic, add to a pot with beef broth, simmer, add the tomatoes and sauce and the italian seasoning. Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer to blend the flavors, add rice, serve. We like to sprinkle a bit of cheddar on top.
A curious thing today. When Tim and I first tested for Covid, it was our last box of tests. Last Monday, I did call our pharmacy to see what test kits cost. We had gotten the four previous tests free with our medicare card at that pharmacy. My thoughts were to get the tests ordered and then pick them up in the drive through, to avoid going into the store. Much to my surprise, I was told that they would be $31 and change per box (of two tests). That was a bit pricey in my book, and so I did not order them. I also did not want to go into other stores and price them because, well...I was sick.
But after a week, 'needs must', as our Weaver would say. (She's left her mark. Her gentle wisdom has extended far beyond Wensleydale, hasn't it?) I needed groceries badly, and so I masked up and off I went.
Much to my surprise, there was a rack of covid test kits right there, in front of the pharmacy, for just under $16, or about half price of the price I'd been quoted at the pharmacy window.
We stocked up, but honestly, I still cannot figure this out.
I also am still testing strongly positive, which is discouraging.
The news is awful. Trump claiming that the White House has left the south to drown. He's such a liar, and yet his legions believe every word of his bullshit, and even parrot it back, nearly verbatim.
And the world has gone crazy, hasn't it? Even in my little corner of the world.
They wound up having to taze the man, who refused to cooperate. He was talking about not spilling royal blood (Harry? Harry, is that you?) and calling himself a prophet. His girlfriend
attacked police with a wooden sword and earned a tasing as well.
What is not mentioned is that while traffic was stopped for this, a drunk driver rearended stopped traffic for yet another three car accident.
But the sobering thing is that three children were in the car. It must have been terrifying for them, with speeds reaching up to 92 mph. And they were not even in car seats.
Tonight is the debate with Walz and Vance. I am so exhausted by the news that I don't even know if I can watch.
