Water Problem Solution ....... Happenng Today

The long awaited big day is here!! The well is being pulled!!

I have to admit that the term "well pulling" still makes me nervous. The term would imply that the well will no longer be there, since they are "pulling" it. I mean, when the dentist "pulls" your tooth ...... it is no longer there.

The weather this past weekend was wonderful, downright balmy. I was up in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday to fling Martha, the annoying boy cat, out the back door. I walked out in my nightgown and the warm breeze wafted round me. I was tempted to open all the windows when I went back inside.

Martha, the boy cat, has been sleeping in at night this winter. I felt cruel making him go out when the temperature was so low. He sleeps all day, after gobbling up all the dog food he can steal before the canine contingent take him down and they roll on the floor play fighting. From there he saunters over to the office door to gain access to his cat food. Once there he gorges on his Meow Mix, then comes back into the house and my empty bed to snooze the day away. He arises in the evening to torment the dogs until bedtime, then goes back to sleep with the rest of us until he decides he wants to roam.

To awaken me, he insinuates himself between the shade and the window and starts tapping the shade against the window, knowing this will annoy me awake. That fat cat is smart. One cold night at 2:30, I scooped him up and tossed him in the office. He came back an hour later and got under the shade and scaled the window to the top and mewled loudly. See what I mean?

But this was supposed to be a post about my first thought of the morning. The weather has changed. It is cold today. So, I wondered upon wakening ..... is it as cold as a well diggers a$$??

Should I go ask?

Affordable Health Care .... Promises, Promises

I read an article last week about the benefits of affordable care for those over the age of 60. Did you know that you are entitled to an annual "well" exam free, with no cost to you at all. No co-pay. Also preventative care is offered "at NO COST" for screenings such as mammograms and colonoscopies and pneumonia shots, as well as flu shots.

I feel enlightened, since I had to pay for my annual exam last year. Not just the co-pay, but the balance of the cost of the office visit, since I had not yet met my deductible. Seems they did not honor that part of the "contract". For years we had no insurance. Not able to afford $1200 a month, since our health history factored in.

Last year we signed up for the mandatory insurance. I say mandatory, since there would be a fine for not doing so. The plan we chose was not all that good. A very high deductible to meet and, like I said, the co-pay, pus the balance of the office visit until the deductible was met. The premiums were low, but we still had to pay out of pocket for our prescriptions. So, really, this "affordable" health care cost us more that not having insurance at all.

Like I said the premiums were low, only $27 a month. But that $27 provided nothing, other than the assurance that should hospitalization be required for a major illness, it would not bankrupt us. I have been waiting patiently for a new year to start so that all the referrals to specialists and tests would apply to my annual deductible .......... then we got our new policy and the premiums had jumped to $328 a month. No, the coverage did not change at all, it was still pretty crummy with a high deductible to meet before it paid for anything.

So, we dropped the policy, went back to the "market place" and found another plan through another carrier for $44 a month. Not any better than the other policy, but "affordable". Now I have to wait until March 1st. Almost here and I am nothing, if not patient.

So, imagine out surprise to find out that we have been charged $352 on our income tax for the amount that was paid for our affordable health care. Add insult to injury. I am so confused.

Totino's Pizza Rolls

Back to the Super Bowl ........ He Who only occasionally watches sports on TV and knows the plot line of the Young and Restless, decided to watch the Super Bowl yesterday. He enjoys the commercials, after all.

He had seen a spoof on Saturday Night Live about Totino's Pizza Rolls. I am not a big fan of those. They taste like cardboard with pizza flavoring to me. I am a flavor snob. I like for my food to taste good.

I bought a smoked turkey on sale last week and decided that turkey sandwiches would do fine along with some salads. That way he could fix his own food at will all day long. We needed bread if we were to have sandwiches and I made a list with a few items we needed and sent him to the grocery. On the list I included the ingredients to make a chocolate lava cake in the crock pot. I am nothing if not a good cook and wife .... since I don't even like chocolate.

You would have thought that all the food I prepared would have been enough. There are only two of us and the turkey weighed 15 lbs. So, I was sitting there pondering things I ponder and playing spider solitaire while the football game dragged on and on, when He Who barely knows his way around a kitchen other than to create peanut butter atrocities, hands me a small plate with Totino's Pizza rolls.

That was not on my list. I don't know why, but I ate some. They tasted just the same as I remembered with their tiny little cubes of fake pepperoni and sausage and the chewy cardboard outer covering. It was one of those mindless things one does. It was there, so I ate it. As I write this, I still have indigestion.

I saw in the freezer that he has more of these pizza rolls left, since he bought the giant "family sized" bag. He always does that, he buys like he is still buying for our family of 20, instead just 2.

Now, before you point out that I cooked a 15 lb. turkey ...... let me remind you that 15 lbs. is small for a turkey and I have other plans for that bird. Not to mention the fact that it was already smoked and only a buck a pound. I also gave some to our friends, with some cake for their Super Bowl eating pleasure. He Who loves Totino's Pizza Rolls commented that we sure weren't going to eat all that turkey as he left to deliver the goods.

Oh, little does he know that he will be eating lots of fowl in the weeks to come, in some forms recognizable and in some not.

The Mind Wanders

Super Bowl is on and I have grown tired of pretending to watch. Too many time outs. I find them annoying. Most of the game I had a book on my ear bud, but I finished it and now here I sit, my mind wondering aimlessly.

I keep going back to that dried cat urine being used for yellow pigment in paint. I wonder who came up with that idea. Dog poop. There must be something dog poop could be useful for. I have plenty and it would be way easier to harvest than cat pee. Can't smell any worse that cat urine.

 Really, have you ever been house hunting and entered a home in which the carpet has been saturated with cat urine? You can yank that carpet out, but the smell will linger forever. Maybe the color lingers too and that makes it perfect for paint pigment ...... who knows?

So while there is only a minute left on the clock, I am trying to imagine what one could create out of dog poop. I am a frustrated inventor.

Blogger Hates Me

Okay, Blogger hates me. Finally let me back in. For days I have tried to access those blogs I follow, Blogger tells me I follow no blogs at this time ........

The Internet is extremely slow. My old dog Oscar continues to get better, but seems to have his days and nights reversed. I hear him snoring as I write. Last night he paced. His toe nails click-clicking on the wood floor in my bedroom. We have a gate up to limit his mobility, but after listening for awhile I finally got up and removed the gate. This was after I lay as still as possible, pretending to be asleep, hoping He Who was also awake would get up and tend to the dog.

I decided this was a bad idea, since if He Who loves a roaring fire got up, he would, no doubt, add some logs and raise the temperature that had just gotten comfortable. My main objection to getting up was the fact that all the dogs follow me. Usually starts with Cujo, then Toni Louise decides that she should check it out, while Wall-E will come out from the covers and may or may not join in.

This was not a problem last night. Oscar's pain pills are a once a day event. Between the hours of 4 and 5PM. He will go to the treat jar and call out to me. There he will watch as I pop his pill in half to get the correct dose for him, then carefully break a treat in half and mold it around the half-pill. I break a second treat in half so that I can give treats to all of them.

Now, we all know that there is an order to follow when giving treats. Oscar, being most senior, is always first. Wall-E, being most timid, not to mention considerate is always last. Toni Louise likes to perform a twirly little dance for her treat and Cujo requires a firm warning to take his treat nice, no nipping. They vie for second and third place, both being competitive.

Yesterday, when I knelt down and carefully placed the treat with the pill in Oscar's mouth, Cujo snatched it away and despite my quick action to pry open his greedy jaws, swallowed it!!!!! I had to prepare Oscar's again and Cujo thought he deserved a second treat when Toni and Wall-E got theirs. Instead, he was treated to a good scolding about snatching treats from the mouths of others.

So, last night, Cujo was one mellow little guy. Once asleep, he was like a rag doll. Slept all night long, he did. Never moved. While, Oscar, on the other hand had many needs throughout the night. He was like a toddler. He wanted to go out, but just stood there gazing at the dark terrain. Then he was back up for water. Then the pacing and I released him from the confines of our room. I woke periodically and once when I checked on him, he was just standing in the middle of the sitting area staring at the wood stove, with his cloudy cataract covered eyes.

Think I will join him now and nap. Cloudy dreary day is perfect for napping.

Attitude Adjustment and Urine

Still waiting for the well estimate and trying to figure out how to work those remodels into the bank loan. Feeling better. Not physically so much, but back to my optimistic self ..... as opposed to my pity party of yesterday.

Lots of TV watching. Wish the weather would release me from these four walls. Watching TV can be quite enlightening. Did you know that the yellow pigment used for making paint is dried cat urine? No wonder paint stinks. How do they come into possession of this? Is there a cat house somewhere that trains cats to pee into a vessel that is then put in an oven to dehydrate the urine? Perhaps "cat house" would not be what this is called ........

Why cat urine? Why not human urine? I would sell my urine to the paint manufacturers ...... Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I sell aluminum cans, what's the difference?

Is cat urine a better color? I wonder.

Happy New Year

The beginning of the year was supposed to be the beginning of better luck ..... or so I thought.

We had big plans to remodel our bathrooms this Spring. I was measuring and determining how much tile would be needed as I recovered from Shingles. Feeling crappy, but optimistic. I convinced myself that I would start to feel lots better and get my energy back in time to start ripping out old stuff and start laying tile. I even found a good price on my tile ........

The well continues to plague our lives. He Who fancies himself a plumber finally admitted he was out of his league and called in an expert. Two men, I am not sure what to call them, came out and looked at the contents of the filter and then walked out to the well and determined the scope of the project. That was last week and we are waiting to hear how much this project will cost.

Even without knowing the estimate, I know that the bathroom remodels are on hold. I know that a trip to the bank to add to the mortgage is in my future. Two steps forward, three steps back. Never gaining ground, just losing. I am finding it hard to remain optimistic.

That energy I have been waiting on seems to also be on hold. A trip to the clinic last week added more prescriptions, took some existing ones away and added a referral to a gastroenterologist to my world. I feel like crap!

Oscar, my beloved old dog, is still confined to his crate, but seems to be feeling better. The episodes of pain have decreased and he looks like he has lost some weight. The pain medication keeps him pretty mellow. But, as he starts to feel better, he wants to be out of the kennel. His kennel is situated right next to my chair and his bed at night is right at the foot of our bed. He prefers to be with the rest of us and his canine siblings have learned to be careful when he is on the loose. Martha, the boy cat, has been the bane of his existence.

Martha loves to lurk in corners and chairs, just waiting for an opportunity to pounce on anyone who may happen by. Poor Oscar is left yelping in pain, his front leg twisted to one side as his muscles spasm. Martha has been outside a lot of late.

This morning as I was having my coffee, trying to talk myself into feeling good, Oscar started yelping inside his kennel. This cry was higher pitch, like a scream. I jumped up and immediately unlocked the door to the kennel to get to him. The door seemed to be stuck and the more I pulled, the louder he screamed. This caused a chain reaction behind me as Toni Louise started barking and growling at me. She thought I was hurting him and the other two joined in with the barking. I stood up and turned around to restore order to barking trio.

They settled down, Oscar was still yelping and I could now see why I could not open the door to the kennel. His mouth was wide open and his teeth were hung in the grid of the door. The poor old guy only has a few teeth left and he managed to get those caught in the door. My attempt to open the door only made the situation worse.

I finally got my fingers in far enough to move his upper jaw and release his teeth. I opened the door and gathered him carefully in my arms and sat down and bawled my eyes out.

Oscar is okay, but this entire day has been non-productive and I am a basket case.