Cats and Cars.

 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. 

Tame thing.

 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. 

Health Care

 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:

https://www.risehealth.org/insights-articles/latest-wsj-investigation-finds-ma-insurers-collected-15b-from-nurse-home-visits/

It reads as follows:

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. 

Oh, the shame!

 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. 

There's One Born Every Minute.

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. 

Soup, Lies, and Videotape

 First off, for those that asked: 

Stuffed Pepper Soup

1 tbls olive oil

1 pound of ground meat (I generally use venison)

1 medium sized onion

2 tsp minced garlic

Salt and pepper 

two green bell peppers (capsicum to you guys?)

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.

Interesting

The huge pile of dirt that was created when we had the basement excavated (it seems like a hundred years ago, but was actually a mere 16 months ago) has been spread out across the yard. We have been smoothing it all out and gathering the stones.

Tim found two very interesting stones. We were not sure what we were looking at, but I put it before the minds at the Dull Men's Club, and they did not disappoint. They were quickly identified as 'concretions', a new word for me, which led to some interesting reading. To sum it up, minerals drip into and fill spaces between layers of rock.

So that was pretty interesting.

Sunday morning, we went to the new build. We saw an unfamiliar truck parked along side the new road put in for the right-of-way. We do not yet know all the vehicles that will be using the road. When Tim saw a stranger trudging back to the truck dragging a garbage can, he headed straight down to talk to him. Interestingly, he is a native grass seed collector for the state. He gathers the seed. He has a machine to clean the seed. The seed is weighed and the state pays the property owner. He was glad to see us.

 Remember that I told you that half our acreage was swamp? Tim has spent a couple years fighting to reclaim that, but we do have some marsh left. In that wet area the seed collecter found a plant called rattlesnake grass. He had gone down with his garbage can and collected what he estimated to be 15 pounds of it. 

We told him he was surely welcome to come and collect anytime he was in the area. We didn't mind. Now that we recognize the truck and know what he is up to, it is fine.

Later, Tim was reading up on that subject. He was shocked spitless to discover that rattlesnake seed retails for $300/lb, $22 an ounce.

So that was interesting too.

My daughter and her long term significant other went to a baseball game in Pittsburgh with William. The electronic billboard was running announcements and Don urged her to watch for a big announcement. Her birthday is Wednesday, so she waited for a birthday greeting. Much to her shock, it was a proposal. She stood gaping. When she found her words, she gasped 'What did you DO?' and he gave her a ring as William watched grinning.

So that was another bit of excitement.

Today, we went up to the house to work, and I spent some time with the kittens as usual. Sigh is missing. He is always the second to show up at feeding time. 

We have seen fox tracks in the morning in our freshly smoothed dirt which runs between the house and the garage. It might have been the eagle if they were in front of the garage. Hard to tell. I looked around for some clue, but found nothing.

There is not much I can do. I built a way for them to get upstairs in the garage if they need to escape something. 

I am half way done with my post cards. I should be finished writing them on the 26th, a full month before they are to be sent.

We haven't got our computer back, so ignore any mistakes in this post.