A blast from the past

I had totally forgotten about this until I saw it on a friend's FB page....

I love the Muppets!!!

Sheesh...

For anyone who still hasn't figured out that there's one hell of a markup on prescription medications, here's an eye-opener from an insurance statement:

(common cholesterol-lowering drug) 20mg . . . charge: $152.12 . . . total drug cost: $16.63.

Which explains why those who don't have insurance sometimes have to choose between buying medications they need, and putting food on the table. No one in this society should NOT be put into that situation! Yes, there's Medicare for seniors and Medicaid for low-income people, but there's a good chunk of the population that doesn't meet the criteria for either program. Make just a few dollars too much a month? No insurance coverage for you! (Like these folks, who are in a nightmarish situation - go read through the blog, it's worth the time it takes. Much as I bitch about things, I know we're really very lucky in comparison.)

Yet we don't need national health care. Bullshit.

Fun with phones

Well, we're going to be moving my dad closer to us (more on that later), and I've been trying to find him a new apartment, get moving arrangements made, change-of-address notifications sent out, new bank accounts set up and money transfers made, insurance company/coverage changes handled, etc. There's a LOT to take care of in a move, especially in one across country.

I figured getting him local phone service would be the easy part, since AT&T covers the landline service where he'll be living, and he already has them for his current carrier. Guess what? I figured wrong. First, the AT&T representative told me he would have to run a credit check on Dad before they could set up the new service. OK, he's a current customer, no big deal - right? Um, no. The AT&T provider in *this* part of the country has no way of accessing the AT&T account records of anyone in the *that* part of the country. Customer service: Strike One.

Then the rep couldn't find the address of Dad's new apartment in their system, despite giving him BOTH alternate street names. Yes, there are two. Apparently the road got renamed after the apartments were built. The apartment manager gave me a sheet they hand out to all new residents, telling people what specifically to say regarding the physical address when dealing with AT&T. Guy couldn't find it, under either variant. But he *could* find a similar address that *might* be the right place. But it might not be, either. Customer service: Strike Two.

Finally, told me there IS no service to Dad's new address, based on what he could find in their records. That's odd, everybody else in the building has AT&T as their local carrier. Customer service: Strike Three.

AT&T . . . YOU'RE OUTTA THERE!

So when we get Dad out of the old apartment and cancel his current phone service, we're not getting him a landline here. We'll buy him a basic cell phone (a smartphone would just confuse - and frustrate - the hell out of him), put him on our calling plan (YEA VERIZON! . . . although we liked Alltel better), and cancel the emergency-only 10-minutes-a-month cellular plan he has now. Cost for us: about $20 a month. Savings to him: about $60 a month. Advantage: We'll be able to text him instead of calling with reminders and quick messages. AND he won't have long-distance charges to worry about anymore. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

Addendum: I forgot to mention that the guy couldn't find the correct building address in the system by finding the apartment office **because the residential division can't look up business numbers**, even though they're both serviced by AT&T! Idiotic system they have there.

I do have to say, we had AT&T cell service back in the early days and their customer service was top-notch then. We've also had them as our long-distance carrier in the past, and the customer care wasn't as good as with cellular. Now, I'm even less impressed, at least with the residential service care.

Huh

I just discovered that one of our local funeral homes is offering "pet aftercare". Embalming Fluffy? I don't think so.....

Update: The offer cremation, remembrance services and memorial plaques. No embalming. I asked. As a pet owner, I think that's pretty cool. And NO, the animals are NOT cremated in human-cremation facilities.

"Your Final Text Message"

Not much left to say after that, is there?

I love Zits (the comic)

Techgeek finds this funny. OTOH, Squidboy would turn wrong side out if I said something like that to him!

Huh. Who would've thought it...?

I have international visitors. I don't know that I can call them "readers" as they may have inadvertently wandered in here and didn't stick around. But it's interesting.

2011 Resolutions

Yeah, that's me in a nutshell, procrastinating again. I still haven't finalized my list of new year's resolutions, but I think I have a reasonable start:

1. Stop procrastinating. Ah, who am I kidding? I'm already a week and a half late on this one!

2. Blog more, and not just post videos without comment.

3. Lose the extra weight. Working on it already, although it's definitely been slow going. But I have logged 14.95 miles on the treadmill in the last week!

4. Eat more dark chocolate. Ding! Ding! We have a winner here, folks!

5. Get organized. In *this* lifetime?!?

6. Clean up my blogroll and delete some of the dead links.

7. Stop cussing quite so much. Maybe if I start now, by the time I have grandkids in a few years, I won't inadvertently teach them any words they shouldn't use in front of their other grandparents.

8. Answer e-mail in a more timely fashion.

9. Cook more often myself and give Athos a break. And actually try the recipes I've set aside "to try soon" on a regular basis instead of just every now and then.

10. Consume fewer carbs. I'm a carb junkie, and the only reliable way for me to get the weight loss going is by cutting waaaay back on them at first, and then keep my intake down. The problem is, it doesn't feel like I've had a "real" meal if it hasn't include at least a little bread, rice, pasta, or potatoes. Sometimes I can make do with croutons in my salad, but not often.

Cat Talking: Translation

Cat vs. Printer: the translation

Um . . . check your wiring

This had to have been deliberate, but it's still funny...

Mr. Deity and the Really Hard Time

More Fry and Laurie (NSFW)

So very wrong, but so funny.....

Fry and Laurie: "The Duel"

I ended up watching some classic comedy sketches by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie this afternoon instead of accomplishing anything useful. That's just kind of the way things worked out, you know? Ah, well....

I love Hugh Laurie in "House, M.D.", but the show just can't adequately showcase the full range of his skills. And Stephen Fry really should be better known on this side of the 'the pond' than he is; he's equally talented.

Best Christmas ever!

I'm so happy I'm about to burst, and I can't say anything on Facebook until they do, but:

TECHGEEK AND JEZZI ARE ENGAGED!!!!!!!!

She's an amazing young woman who I already love dearly, and I couldn't be happier for the two of them. Wedding plans to be finalized after he finds gainful employment.....

Zombie holiday tips

Via Badtux the Snarky Peguin....

Wow!

I'm losing whatever was left of my mind

Well, it's Day 10 of the weight loss plan, and I'm down a whole 4 pounds. Not bad, except that 3 of those appeared after I'd started exercising. So, net, down just 1. Weight loss has never been easy for me; I've had to fight tooth and nail for every pound, which is part of the reason why regaining those 20-plus pounds earlier this year was such a blow to my ego. But this time I really want to get them off and keep them off long-term. At 50, it's long past time when I should have seriously started looking out for my health, and I'm feeling the effects of not having done much on that front. Weight issues aside, my cholesterol levels and blood sugar and blood pressure (most days) are fine - in fact, my "good" cholesterol is at a high enough level I've had my doc comment that she wishes her readings were that good. But the extra pounds have taken their toll on my hips and knees, and my feet are just damn near flat these days. There's nothing I can do about any of that at this point. I just hope to keep additional joint failure to a minimum.

What I have no way of knowing is what toll has been taken on my cognitive health. Is there plaque build-up in my cerebral arteries? Are my brain cells really getting enough oxygen? Or is it just that, at 50, cognitive mental processes start to slide and there's not a damn thing I could have done differently to change that?

You see, what makes me wonder is that I've been noticing more and more that I'm forgetting things. My doc tells me not to worry, but I can't help it: There's Alzheimer's in the family. Well, not a definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer's per se, maybe more just what used to be called senile dementia, but it comes through my father's side of the family. Grandma was off in an alternate reality long before she died, and Dad's showing signs of going down the same road. So it scares me. I lose the word I'm looking for, I lose track of where I set things down, I walk through doorways and forget what I was going after. Okay, maybe that last one isn't anything new - that started shortly after I'd had our first child, and it hasn't gotten better in the intervening years. Back then I could attribute it to new-baby sleep deprivation - which begs the question, does sleep deprivation have lasting long-term effects, or am I just grasping at straws?

Today, for instance, I spent a good chunk of the morning excavating my desk. It needed it - badly. Organized I am not. My filing system tends to resemble nothing so much as an archaeological dig: I look for things by pile and stratum.

Stratum, from wikipedia:

"In geology and related fields, a stratum (plural: strata) is a layer of rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguish it from other layers. Each layer is generally one of a number of parallel layers that lie one upon another, laid down by natural forces.. They may extend over hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of the Earth's surface."

Yep, that's my desk in a nutshell. The "natural forces" in this case being my lazy-assed self. There's usually a stack of mail I need to deal with, a stack of Dad's bills and papers I haven't paid/filed yet, a stack of Squidboy's bank statements and mail, a stack of recipes I need to file . . . you get the idea. And it works for me. Most of the time, at least. If I wait too long to deal with the piles, everything kind of slides around and gets intermixed, and that's when trouble starts.

See, I knew I'd seen the bill for Dad's VA insurance recently, but couldn't find it. I tore through every pile on the desk and all I could find was the notice from the VA that the bill would be coming, but not the bill itself. The notice came back in late September and was still readily findable. The bill? Uh-uh. It wasn't in Dad's pile, Squidboy's pile, my pile, or the recipe pile. (BTW, just so you know, the household bills never even make it to my desk. Athos has charge of them - and for good reason, as you might imagine! LOL)

I called Dad to see if maybe he still had the bill; some few mailings still go to his old address and get forwarded to the new, and then he forwards them to me. Changing the address for the VA is going to require signatures from him and a copy of the power-of-attorney, and until late September I didn't even know I was going to have to deal with them at all on insurance. I was going to take care of that (and one or two other address changes also requiring paperwork and signatures instead of phone calls) when I drove down there a month or so back, but the trip got postponed and postponed again, and now I'm going in mid-January . . . weather and road conditions permitting.

So where was I? Oh, yeah. He didn't have the bill either. Panic ensued. I started tearing through auxiliary "filing stacks". No luck. I even called a good friend who visits Dad fairly frequently to see if he'd look through Dad's accumulated mail for it when he was there next. Dad's doing fairly well mentally most days, but when he asked three or four times what it was I was wanting him to look for, I started to worry that maybe he had it but just didn't recognize it for what it was.

And then I stopped . . . took a breath . . . and looked in the checkbook. Just in case, y' know? I couldn't find the damned bill because I'd already paid it. And not that long ago, either. Oy.

You see why I worry about my memory?

Pardon me while I bang my head against the wall for awhile....

At least my desktop is cleaner now. The accumulation of "Congratulations, you're pre-approved for our credit card!" junk mail has been shredded, the new credit cards for an account we almost never use have made a reappearance (which is why we hadn't even realized they were missing), the last few months' worth of bank statements are ready to be properly filed in the notebook as soon as I locate the hole punch, and I found the 2011-2012 planner that went MIA right after I bought it in October. I even found a missing prescription that I'd refilled a few days ago, one that came into the house with several Xmas-shopping bags - and promptly vanished in the chaos. If I keep going, I might actually have everything ready to do our taxes as soon as the year-end paperwork comes through next month, instead of the going through the usual oh-crap-where-did-I-put-that-file?!? routine that usually happens along about mid-March.

Or not. If I ever got that organized, the universe would probably come to a screeching halt, and I don't know if I want that on my conscience!

Mike Perry: "The Farmer Snort"

I do love Michael Perry's down-home sense of humor....

He has several books out, all of which are very funny and well worth reading. You can find his website and blog here.

Day 7

Just over 3 miles on the treadmill, no snow shoveling . . . although there is some that needs to be done. Maybe later? I ended up spending most of yesterday at the mall, trying to finish up Xmas shopping. (Hopefully all that walking counts for *something*, even if it was mostly stop-and-go!) I think I've got it whipped into shape now - finally found something for Jezzi (Technogeek's significant other) that I think she'll like. This should be a good Xmas.

OTOH, all is not good. I climbed on the scale this morning and discovered to my annoyance that I've gained three pounds. Oh, I expected it, it often happens when a person first starts exercising, the body retains more water until the muscles adjust. But it still sucks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Current movie: The Lion in Winter, the Katherine Hepburn / Peter O'Toole / Anthony Hopkins / Timothy Dalton version. The Patrick Stewart / Glenn Close version is all right, but I like the original better. I've always adored Katherine Hepburn; wish I had even a fraction of her talent!

Remember "Smiling Bob" of Enzyte fame?

Mule Breath has the rest of the story.....

Straight No Chaser - 12 Days video

'Borrowed' from Bayou Renaissance Man, who also 'borrowed' it. These guys are phenomenal!

"The Digital Story of Nativity"

Via GruntDoc....

A bit of a quandry

I'm dealing with a situation that has me flummoxed. (Pissed off, too, but that's another issue.) My dad is in his early 80s and is in a senior care center. He's pretty much self-sufficient as far as caring for himself and taking his medication as prescribed, he just never learned how to cook or do laundry, so he needs someone to do those things for him. And he's still pretty much "with it" mentally - he just has always had an annoying tendency to make up his mind based on what he thinks are the facts, and ignores the truth when it's inconvenient for him. He also has a habit of holding me responsible for things that are totally out of my control, sometimes even for things that have absolutely nothing to do with me. And if I point out that I can't do anything about the situation and don't want to hear about it any more (or, gods forbid, suggest what he can do to rectify things), I've been known to get "Why do you hate me so much?" in response.

So. Recently a situation involving my youngest and a visit to his grandfather that didn't happen arose. Squidboy had few days' leave time, and went back to Original Home State to visit the relatives. Athos' side of the family and my father live about two hours away from each other. Not knowing that Squidboy didn't intend to make the trip to see Grandpa because he never told me of his final plans, and based on the fact that the kid had told me he was "going to visit everybody", I let Dad know that he'd be in sometime over the weekend. Well, turns out the boy hadn't planned on making the drive. (As it turns out, he couldn't have rented a car for the trip - rules have changed, and generally a person under 25 can't rent a car these days.) To make things even better, he didn't even bother to call his grandfather despite promising to do so; he said he was "busy" when I challenged him about it afterwards.

Now his Dad is taking his disappointment out on me. He's convinced that Squidboy spent the entire weekend "following his uncle around like a puppy" (Dad's own words) and that's why he didn't visit. Not true; he actually spent very little time with Favorite Uncle, and was dragged around to various family functions while he was there. I explained the situation and told him to talk to the kid if he has a problem with the way things turned out. His response? "No, I won't do that." But he's willing to bitch at me about it. Mein Gott.

Now I have to decide whether to just bite my tongue and let Dad go on and on about everything and continue blaming me, or do I basically tell him to STFU about it. What I'm really wanting to say is, "I had no control over the situation. Talk to Squidboy if you've got a problem with it. ...No? So you think it's better to piss off the person who's paying your bills than it is to risk annoying the kid who can't even be bothered to call you?!?"

Not that it would do any good, I've never counted for as much as the boys have, them being penis-people and all. But it would sure make me feel better.

Day 5

No treadmill yesterday; I shoveled snow off the deck instead, and today even my rib muscles hurt from it. I did buy some new running shoes that are supposed to give me proper support and help keep me from over-pronating. That's probably one reason my knees ache so much of the time. And I've noticed that if I've been wearing footwear that doesn't have much built-in arch support, my knees and hips feel worse. Unfortunately, that includes the new snow boots that I ordered from The Animal Rescue Site a couple of weeks ago. I was going to link to them, but apparently they're out of stock. I got them for half of the regular price and wish I'd bought a second pair in another color - they're very very comfortable on my feet! It's like wearing tall-topped, furry-lined house shoes.

I didn't want to push too hard since I'm wearing new shoes (there's always a break-in period), so I only did a little over a mile and a tenth on the treadmill. But I did it at a little faster pace than I had been, so maybe it'll all even out.