So special!

 

I had to replace the old pooper-scooper recently and when I received the new one, it came with a pair of white gloves.  According to the illustrated instructions, one was to don the gloves before putting the parts together.  Is one to also don said gloves whilst scooping the poop?  I wish Erma Bombeck was still around - she'd know the answer.

I opted not to gather on Thanksgiving this year.  The instances of Covid are rising and I have too many at-risk loved-ones.  The thing that pushed me over the edge was the last minute arrival of my niece - who I doubt follows any protocol for protecting herself from the virus.  I consoled myself with the thought of leftovers but, to my dismay, it appears that they dipped the turkey carcass in the Amazon River after dinner and the piranhas got anything edible.  At least there will be broth.  Geez.  While I was wallowing around in my pool of self-pity, I got a text from Marianne asking how my Thanksgiving went.  When I gave her the lowdown (boohoo), she packaged up a heap of leftovers for me.  Bless her.

The pups' holiday gift came early - two faux fur throws - and I might not see Peanut until spring.  He is burritoed on the left and you can just see Lovey's ear on the right.  I'd say they were pleased.  Slimmie has taken over the dogs comfy saucer bed, so we are set for the cold weather.  Whenever it comes.  So far, November has been warm and rain-filled.  And grey.  And gloomy.

On the medical front, there has been a victory!  After mulling it around, I decided that I would rather change doctors than change insurance.  I had visions of bureaucratic snafus abounding, as I tried to change from one company to another within a month.  I went online to check Humana's doctor network and, lo and behold, there was my orthopedic surgeon!  I took a deep breath and called to make an appointment.  When the receptionist asked, "Still BCBS?" I plunged in - no, Medicare with Humana.  She took my membership number without batting an eye.  It is a mystery, but I have an appointment with the surgeon next week.  Who would have thought I'd be so excited to see a surgeon!

Last week, I received two packages out of the blue from two of my ex-coworkers.  One packaged contained an almost lifetime supply of organic peppermint tea and the other contained this:

It is like a fairy cup - I swear!  It has irises on the saucer and cup, with a beautiful hummingbird handle.  Even the spoon is iris themed.  While they hoped I would think of them every time I had a cuppa, I cannot even think about using this precious object!  It is safely displayed in my hutch.

I am finally done with all the stuffies (although there are two very special ones I am planning on making for myself) and am moving on to more useful knitting, now that Christmas is looming large on the horizon.  How did that happen!?!  I'm working through my book purge - now combing the shelves of the cookbook collection - with tons more to go.  I have a particularly hard time parting with cookbooks, and my job is not made any easier every time I go into Marianne's store.  I have to be firm.  Pfft.

I hope you all had a comforting thanksgiving - or as comforting as it can be in these strange times.

Mi curtido sabe fantastico!

 

(Translated:  Damn!  My curtido is yummy!)  I finally remembered to check on the progress of my ferments.  I had made a half gallon of sauerkraut and a half gallon of curtido with ONE HALF of the giant cabbage.  This year I decided to go au naturel with my sauerkraut, as opposed to my usual blueberry/caraway seed sauerkraut.  I also decided to try a new curtido recipe, as I wasn't all that thrilled with previous results.  OMG.  It is delicioso!  I got the recipe from the book included in my Mason Fermentation kit.  In addition to the usual carrot/cabbage/red chili of yore, they added grated garlic and oregano.  I love it!  And it's purty.  

Since I know y'all can't wait to hear the latest in my social security wranglings, let me say that I found yet another reason to go local.  I laid out my concerns to a local representative of the SSA and she said (to paraphrase), "well, I wouldn't give the government more money than I have to - it will take forever to get it back.  You'd be better off just going with the flow and it will resolve itself."  When I voiced concern over getting cut off because I didn't pay the quarterly bill (there's a slight gap of 2-3 weeks between when the bill is due and when they will be taking Medicare out of my SS payment), she said, "if they harass you in any way, just call us."  So.  

I am tackling the insurance issue today with "Gary".  I have an appointment with my dermatologist in mid-December and I was dreading finding out if or if not she accepted Humana.  I finally pulled up the BGPs and checked this morning.  Hallelujah!  She does.  Good thing, too.  It takes a year to get an appointment with this woman.  She refuses to use a PA, so it's one doctor to every 5,000 patients.  Crazy pants.

I'm trying to find ways to bring the homogenous-ness of my days into some kind of focus.  So far, it's not working out as well as I hoped.  Some of it has to do with the fact that I am unable to do more than one largish task a day.  I cannot tell you how frustrating that is.  Yesterday, it took me an hour to get all my recycling and trash into my car for the trip to the transfer station.  At least they are still taking pity on me and sort everything when I get there.  I am planning a trip to the grocery store today - I figure I will get there when they open so that there will be fewer potential Covid-carriers milling about.  I have a short list, but I will go bonkers if I spend more time in this house.

Also on the agenda is:  take down wind chimes, take out compost, vacuum, sweep, clean bathrooms, wash dog blankets.  I can hardly stand the potential thrill of it all.  (sound of dripping sarcasm)  I have had the vacuuming, sweeping and cleaning on the agenda for an alarming amount of time.  I manage to segue off to something totally irrelevant every time I am faced with housework.  Such as waxing the top of Lorenzo, the dining room table.  I may need an intervention.  Or cleaning service.

In my defense, at least a little purging has been done - I have tons of books on gardening, homesteading and self-sufficiency type stuff.  Looking to the future - and my tiny home - my library is going to have to be severely curtailed.  I had a big box of books to put on FB marketplace and figured it would be one of those, "I'd like that ONE and could you deliver it to my house, 30 miles from you?"  However, it appears that there are a few young families that are taking the plunge, so I ended up with three requests in a row.  Miracle of all miracles, the second family (first one lived 40 miles from me and wanted delivery...) picked it up within an hour of requesting it.  I am going to go through the second batch and will just send them along to the same family.

Volunteers, Autumn tries for a foothold (and fails) and Dimples finds her flock

I have been enjoying the fruits of my volunteer arugula for weeks now.  There is nothing more satisfying than produce that you didn't have to plant and fuss over, right in your backyard.  This little cold frame has been churning out early and late greens for the past four years, bless its little untreated wooden heart.

It's very frustrating for someone who loves autumn with all her heart, to have to suffer the return of summer, smack dab in the in the middle of fall.  All the trappings of my autumn/winter cocooning have been put in place.  We had three days of snow.  My furnace came on.  Then it was 72 degrees.  Good lord.  Being inherently stubborn, I continue to drag around in my fleece robe, sweating and grumbling.  The twinkle lights on the fireplace are the only things keeping my spirits afloat.

It seems as though I will be spending most of my retirement on endless phone calls.  I thought I had everything in order - but, no.  I received a bill for my Medicare coverage at the same time I received notice that they were deducting my medicare payments from my monthly SS.  This means that I have to sit down and brace myself for an hour+ of calls to track down a human that knows his/her stuff and can straighten this out before it get out of hand.  To further complicate things, I discovered that, just because your medical center accepts your insurance, not all of the doctors within that center follow suit.  Yes, you guessed.  All my doctors except the orthopedic group accpet Humana.  Fernatssake.  The good news is that I am still within the open enrollment period, so I can switch insurers without penalty.  The bad news is that I am not looking at surgery until after the first of the year.  It should be an interesting winter.

There are definitely good things about gimping around with my cane.  I went to the town hall complex to get transfer station tickets and had to go through the whole hip explanation with the town clerk.  By the time I got to the transfer station with my recycling, two days later, both attendants raced to my car and would not hear of my lifting a thing, having been told about my 'affliction'.  It does make my independent-as-all-heck self bristle, but it also makes my presently-limited self grateful.

I am continuing to clear out things that I no longer need, want or, never used.  In the process of rehoming a 10x100 foot roll of greenhouse film (you never know when you might need one of those, right?  How about 'never'?), I met a young couple who decided to give up suburban life for a life in the country.  They had a large garden, had just built a hoophouse structure, and had chickens and ducks.  In the course of our socially-distanced, masked conversation, I mentioned that my duck, Dimples, was now a lone duck.  No longer.  She has gone to join their flock of 8, with a swimming pool.  It was bittersweet - I knew she was lonely for duck company (and was taking it out on the chickens by bossing them around), but I have had her since she was an egg.  I hope she will be happy.

With this many crowns, I think I should have a title.

 (Sweezie, Queen of All She Surveys?)  I made my (next to last) trip to the dentist to get, hopefully, the last in a long line of crowns done earlier this week.  I am all about squeezing the last penny out of my dental insurance (and my wallet, apparently) before I venture into the unknown Medicare territory.  As perverse as it sounds, I love my dentist.  I don't particularly like any form of dentistry but, if dentistry needs to be administered, then I vote for Svetlana B.  She is all of 4 feet 10 and is a human dynamo.  Her dental assistant works with her so well, it's like a dance.  Sometimes the dance of pain, but it is still fascinating.  Other than the dreaded numbing shot,  she is fast and exact and gets me in and out in sound-breaking time.   

I remember my first dentist - he was a gentle, kindly fellow, who wore a white, short-sleeved medical jacket, tie, and smelled of Brylcreem and cigarettes.  Since neither of my parents smoked (although dad did smoke a pipe from time to time), this seemed to me a very exotic thing.  Also, there was the Treasure Chest.  If you were good (translated as didn't scream or bite him), you got to choose a treasure on your way out.  I always went for the gaudiest, largest ring I could find.  

When I was in my mid-20s to mid-30s, I went to my dentist's nephew.  I liked him because of his propensity to use nitrous oxide at the drop of a hat.  A little nervous?  Pop goes the gas, on go the headphones, up goes the volume and off you go to a nicer place than the dentist's chair.  He had a fine selection of music - classical, pop, rock, jazz - there were times that I was actually disappointed when the procedure was over.

After that, I had a series of unhappy experiences with a number of bad dentists that ranged from just rude to barbaric.  I had found a very nice one just down the street from the office, but he retired and sold his business to an Egyptian butcher who apparently got his dental degree through the mail, if he had one at all.  The next one was a woman who seemed so ill at ease and unsure - case in point, I got no less than 7 novocaine shots in the roof of my mouth at every visit - that I couldn't face her.  Then I found Svetlana and have been 'happy' ever since.  I am very chummy with my hygienist, too - who will, sob, be retiring soon.  We traded cell phone numbers so we can keep in touch.

As much as I like them, however, I do hope that this is the last procedure I will be having for at least ten years.

Well, gee whiz.

 This week should wrap up all of the paperworky type stuff vis a vis my 'retirement'.  In an admirable show of support, my past company's COBRA handler (I was imagining a turban and recorder...) contacted me with an offer to continue my healthcare coverage through them.  Let me see... do I choose to pay close to $900 a month for coverage that calls for higher copays and deductibles?  Or do I opt for Medicare plus supplemental, that costs me $144 a month, with lower copays and limited deductibles?  Hmmm.  Give me a nanosecond minute...  

Autumn seems to be coming in fits and starts.  We've had days so warm, all the windows were open and I contemplated hauling the fans out from storage.  Instead, I dug my heels in and 'glistened'.   It's more than frustrating when there is a nice, sunny day and I can only do limited manual labor in my much-neglected garden.  Thank goodness everything is pretty much over for now - just my friends the kale plants are and their slightly less hardy cousins, the chards.  There are things that must get done before snow flies, so I am hoping for a couple of days this week where the sun and moon and planets line up - along with the weather, my hip pain and my motivation.  Hope springs eternal.

Speaking of hips, what would you say the device pictured below is?  (I'm sure Mrs. Puca - she of fourth grade English class - is spinning in her grave over that sentence.)  

If you guessed "bamboo toast tongs with rubber bands on the ends", you would be totally and partially right.  If you guessed that this is a sock-puller-upper tool, disguised as a pair of toast tongs with rubber bands on the ends, you would be 100 percent correct!  My sister thinks I need to stick to professional devices, but I am quite happy with this.  Just call me Sweezie McGuyver.

I am currently filling my time with ferment-making.  This was brought on in force by the arrival of two cabbages of enormous dimensions.  My neighbor asked if I would like a cabbage or six (he always grows enough vege for a family of 12) and I said, naively, sure!  I'll take two.  Sauerkraut is done and curtido is on today's agenda.

If I had a bowling ball, I'd use it for gauge.  Honestly.  He used to compost all of his extras (!!!!) until I convinced him to take them to the food pantry.  Some of those in need have large families - a perfect match, plus it's fresh vege.  Win, win, win.

Not much else to report from the Little Lucky.  I did my first bread run for Marianne (she is one of my bffs and has a large organic farm and general store, for those who may not know) and it was pure, unadulterated aitch ee double ell, being closed in my car with a back seat full of warm, fragrant bread.  I had fleeting thoughts of pulling to the side of the road and diving into the bags - eating myself to a painful and early death.  Very fleeting thoughts, thank goodness, and both the bread and driver survived the hour-long drive.  The bakery has been in business for at least 100 years and it is one of those wonderful neighborhood buildings - an old duplex, with bakery on the right and restaurant on the left.  I will try and get a picture of it on my next run, although it is still dark when I arrive.

I'm off to sort out a few projects.  Even at one a month, it will keep me busy well into my 90s!

Werewolf? Wolverine? Velociraptor?

 

Angry owl?  Baby dragon?  Apparently, it's pretty wild out here at night.  Whatever attacked my rear view mirror was not the usual male Cardinal.   That's hard plastic and the cuts are fairly deep.  I can just imagine trying to explain this to the insurance company.

Retirement continues to carry on in a fog.  Not only am I never sure what day it is, I don't even have to care.  So strange.  I'm hoping it's a phase.  I have all the necessary paperwork done, with the exception of what to do with my 401K.  That is on today's agenda.  Tomorrow, I am making an early morning bread run for Marianne - I'm looking at my new 'job' as courier with a glint of adventure in my eye.  I have to be outside of an Italian bakery in another town at 7AM.  Woohoo!  I get paid in pumpkins, apples and assorted vege.  It's a good deal.

I'm getting some little things checked off the small novel that is my list.  It's very satisfying.  The weather continues to mirror the year - it's totally whacked.  From hard frost, four mornings in a row, I'm back to opening all the windows and using the fan.  We have also been getting rain fairly often - needed, but it would have been more helpful in summer.  I am not complaining.  I also opened my barn door to floor-to-ceiling hay.  AND almost all of it is second cut.  I'm going to have to install one of those reducing belt machines for Linden (who managed to twist an ankle/leg badly enough that it required getting the vet out).  AND - are you ready for this? - the farmer charged me $2.50/bale.  That's right.  Gobsmacked was I.

In my usual bi-weekly check-in with elderly neighbors/friends, I learned that my second set of parents' son's partner has been diagnosed with cancer.  She is a holistic practitioner, lifelong vegetarian and has decided to approach her cancer treatment with a rigid diet.  Everyone around her is all up in arms about it.  It got me thinking that we have moved into a total remove from allowing individuals to choose how to care for their health.  Just because she will not flood her body with poison, does not make her irresponsible.  In my opinion, of course.  I can only hope that I, if faced with the same hard decisions, would be true to my own beliefs.  All I can do for her is to back her up and send her good vibes - which I do every morning.  I have to do these pesky exercises to strengthen leg/hip/butt muscles and loathe it.  Why is it that I cannot for the life of me, stick with good habits?  If it's a bad habit, I cling to it like a barnacle.  I've found that using a prayer-like mantra for friends and family as I go through the routine, helps me stop whining and makes it go faster.  I am such a baby.  Wah.

Speaking of babe...

Can we say 80s?  Unearthed by my youngest sister - taken circa 1981 when I visited her in NYC's East Village (way before it was Yuppie-ized).  I was definitely stylin.

Retirement Day 2

What day is it?  Who knows and who cares.  Welp, my work email was wiped from my phone officially on Saturday - thank goodness.  Unfortunately, they seem to have 'accidentally' swept out some of my personal contacts as well.  There was not one call or email bidding me adieu - after snuffling around, wallowing in self-pity for fifteen minutes, I pulled up the BGPs and throught, "it is way past time to wrest the apron strings from the mothership."  I'm ready for my next adventures.  However, all my adventures so far have been involved in dealing with government agencies.  I've been mired in calls with the Social Security Admin, Medicare program add-ons, 401K hooha.  While I have actually spoken to people(s) about my SS, it is still in limbo.  And it is not helpful that every single person I've talked to, who has retired this year, told me their benefits kicked in right away.  That was pre-Covid.  It's a different reality now.  I am at 45 days and processing seems to be stuck on Step 2.  After macheteing my way through the totally dysfunctional jungle of the local SSA phone system, I finally got a person who was helpful.  My coverage will kick in on November 1, so I won't be faced with a gap.  Now, I have to call back the AARP person who has been waiting to help me navigate the stormy sea of Medicare gap coverage.  OMG.  I tell you, being a member of AARP definitely has its benefits.  I am also on a first-name basis with the 401K guy - I know that he's married, lives in Ohio, has two dogs and a cat, likes the area but plays it down to his friends from the East Coast.  I must generate motherly vibes.  If your mother was Phyllis Diller, that is.

My sleep patterns are all over the place BUT, miraculously (or not), the worst of my anxiety dreams went "poof" after Friday.  I doubt if that will last, but it is a very nice mental vacation.  I do know that I need to set up some kind of structure to my days or I will turn furry and feral, lapse into my Neanderthal genes and start imagining two-way conversations with the dogs.

I was able to harvest greens (kale and chard) and get a bunch of herbs hung and drying before the heavy rains hit.  I am still hoping to get more thyme dried, as I use the heck out of it.

I'm glad I had time to enjoy the week of lovely foliage before we were hit by a fast-moving storm that topped trees, tossed power lines like linguine in clam sauce and ripped all the leaves off.  We have been in need of rain, but it would have been more helpful in July and August.  Besides gleaning what I can from the garden, I've been putting in hour shifts - getting the fence down and rolled up for the year, yoinking the tomato plants out, etc.

The dogs and cat have seamlessly melded into my retirement routine - or unroutine.  I believe that, if I counted, I pick up fleece blankets and re-cover furry bodies at least 50 times a day.  Peanut will bounce off the sofa, dragging his blanket behind, then bounce back, curl into a tight, pathetic ball, and stare at me with his beady little eyes.  Lovey is more verbal - soft whines and heavy sighs.  Obediently, I stagger over and pick up blankets and tuck them back in.  I may go mad.

The life.

"Slimmie" (snort)

I am still working away on the little stuffies - five bunnies down and I'm working on a pig in a dress.  

On Sunday, I had a celebratory dinner with my sister and mother - Connie made the BEST shrimp risotto I have ever eaten, followed by a delectable apple crisp - warm from the oven.  Heaven.  I have been so glad that soup season is upon us, because I have been wanting to make a recipe that sailed past the eyeballs last week - Vegan Curried Pumpkin Lentil Soup.  It did not disappoint - as a matter of fact, I was making little happy noises as I ate it.  It was that good.  There is no picture because it is not a photogenic soup.  You can find the recipe here.

So, ready or not, retirement, here I come.