We are starting with the report on Sunday. Again, the rain turned to snow last night, but now this morning returned to rain. John and the dogs had a wet trip out to exercise and feed the horses. I spent time with frozen vegetables on my sore shoulder, and putting together my meds for the week. I realized I need to order Prilosec and the question came up, after hearing my neighbor was put on it for acid reflux and heartburn, why I was taking it. We found some information on line, and I read the patient instructions with my refill, so I have the right questions to ask my doctors’ nurses. Tonight I go to the Taize’ service.
Last night I had a long phone conversation with a friend I have know since she was 17. We sold her a Brittany for her graduation present. She was a hunter. She now lives in South Lake Tahoe and has a 17 year old daughter. We were amazed at thinking of the past and our friendship over the years. She is 15 years younger than I am, but we were real buddies while I was in Idaho. We went to dog field trials and shows together for years– till I left Idaho. And, our friendship has endured. Those are the best kind. I also visited her in her new home several years ago when I was down for a conference, and one day she took me on a trip around the Lake there at Tahoe. It was a very interesting day together. We visited lots of tourist sites, had lunch, went through museums and wildlife parks, and had a wonderful day.
Sunday night’s Taize’ went well, but we only had a piano, 2 violins, and a clarinet. Dinner after was great: Spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and a birthday cake for the husband of our clarinet player, made by his wife. Chocolate cake with white creamy frosting, made from scratch with Crisco.
Monday: I joined two geographers for lunch at The Dakota Café to discuss scholarship funding for geography students at CWU. There is a gap between the State’s current and future dollar intake and outgo. The recent national economic meltdown brought this issue to the here-&-now but it looks to get much worse as the boomers crash – that is, age, and thus burden the entitlement system they have been promised. After we solved the government’s funding woes, I went to SAIL exercise class at the Adult Activity Center. John met early in the morning with the farrier to trim some of the horses feet. It was nasty weather with winds up to 50 mph. Wind makes horses nervous, they being prey and everything else in their environment is a predator. Wind causes things to move and make noise and if they decide to flee one does not want to be in their escape path. Never a dull moment. All the day’s activities ended well.
Tuesday: Started out snowing, then sunshine, then cloudy, then clear, then snowing again, and ended clear. Sad story. A friend from Yakima died of an apparent heart attack. He was only in his fifties. This was a person I worked with at CWU in Career Services, with many of my students. He was a dear soul and really cared about helping students formulate their resumes, job application letters, and do a good interview for their career. He was a gentle wonderful man who will be missed by all his friends. This generated an extra load of e-mails throughout the day. Busy work for today included receipts, bill paying, and sorting things in the den, but nothing looks accomplished. I washed a load of dishes. Then I went to town for playing music and John fixed a good dinner, but we didn’t eat till I returned, after 8:00 p.m.
Wednesday: Long day of capturing pictures from the WSJ for my colleagues, and working on tax receipts and undoing problems with medical insurance claims submitted incorrectly. That in itself is a full time job. Medicare’s reporting year begins on January 1 while Group Health begins their new round of paperwork in October. Both have deductibles. Thus, when a bill is submitted each entity decides what part of the cost they might pay but won’t because the deductible part hasn’t yet been met. For us now, Medicare is billed first. Often before the doctor/clinic/hospital hears from Medicare and/or Group Health the computer software triggers a delinquent notice. As all the numbers, dates, codes, forms, and so on are indecipherable to anyone the only safe thing to do is to call and question everything. About half the time someone can figure it all out and explain it. Often, though, they will work on your question a little and come back to say a mistake has been made and they will re-code and re-bill. If you have sent a check to the doctor/clinic/hospital, they then will have to return a portion to you. Their check might arrive with another coded form that makes no sense and the time interval may be sufficiently long that you can’t remember why you have just gotten a refund – or a new bill for a service performed 6 months ago. We wonder if the credit scoring agencies pay any attention to any of the medical billings? Hope not.
Thursday: Up early and out to get Sunny in for neuter or spay by 8:30 a.m. at the vet. Turns out Sunny is a female, so she had a spay and will be at the vet overnight, for pickup tomorrow a.m.. She was not real happy being put in the crate for the car trip. The vet’s assistant called to let us know the spay went well with no problems. John has taken to calling her “Sunshine or sweetie.” We left to drive to Costco in Yakima because we were almost out of dog food. While there we got other good stuff, and some for friends and neighbors, to save them a trip. Filled up John’s Subaru with gas for $3.05/gallon and thus saving $2.60 compared to a local purchase. That doesn’t pay for the trip so the rest has to come from savings on monstrous packages and quantities at Costco. Got a good lunch at Quiznos, and not cheap, even with a special coupon. I guess we saved $5.49 on the purchase, however. On home and back soon for me to play music and John to get our phone outage (hence Internet access too) reported in person. If the phone doesn’t work it’s hard to call. Well, we do have cell phones but didn’t have a number to call, and, on the way to town we found we had left those at home anyway. Then we attended a lecture about the changing society in Bali (lots of great photos) at CWU in the late afternoon. Home. Supper. John went in again after dinner for a meeting of the trail riders’ club, for which he writes the monthly newsletter. I stayed home.
Friday: John just went to pick up Sunny – Sunshine. The bill was $124, actually only 70 for spay, and she had shots and rabies for 50. This morning I go for a massage and to play music at the soup kitchen at the food bank, then back to exercise… and tonight is another play with food gig. Lunch today at the soup kitchen after we played was quite good. Barbequed chicken wings, tater tots, green salad, and chocolate cream pie; and, I ate tonight too after playing music. I will need to go on a diet.
Sunny came home this morning, but I didn’t see her till I got home this afternoon. John said she was thrilled to be back to her litter box. She ate a little and went under the bunk bed. He hadn’t seen much of her, but when I came home, she came out to greet me and jumped up on the table but then left to go back to the back of the house.
I did get a slight power nap before driving back to town to the LDS church for playing music and a dinner in payment. Boy, was it good. We had turkey (there was ham too, but too salty for me), rolls & corn muffins, baked potato, salads, and several great desserts (best was cheese cake with strawberries on top). We enjoyed playing for a small group of appreciative folks. We had a pretty good turnout of musicians: guitar, banjo, and 3-4 violins (one alternates on a mandolin).
Saturday will be a full day and night. I’m going to drive to Leavenworth (1.5 hours) over the pass north of us for a birthday party for my former student, and will spend the night so I don’t have to drive home alone in the dark over Blewett Pass. This will be the first day I have spent away from home since returning from the hospital last year, well, from the Rehab center. Guess I was back in the hospital 3 times since then, in March, in June, and in August.
Leavenworth is a small town along a river as that emerges from the east slope of the Cascade Mountains. One time it was a busy little place with lumbering and a railroad – one of three going over the mountains into Puget Sound. The town nearly expired until locals generated a rebirth as a tourist destination – a Bavarian village in central Washington. Here is a link. Check out the links on the left side, including the webcam near the bottom.
http://www.leavenworth.org/modules/pages/index.php?pageid=1
Might be some rain and a little snow on the pass I have to go over this afternoon, and return on Sunday morning. I don’t leave till 3:30 Saturday afternoon, but I will give this to John to put on the blog, and I’ll put my report about the rest of the weekend on next week’s blog.
Hope you all have a good week.
Best regards from Nancy & John and all the critters