Are You Messin’ With Me?

It’s about 3:30am, and I just finished doing up all of my bills and mail from the past week and a half. I said that I wanted to get it taken care of before the weekend was over, and technically that’s what I did. I really gotta work on my mail anxiety though, especially considering that the last couple of times that I let it bulk up like this, there was actually some sort of good news contained within. (But of course, as soon as I let my guard down, that’s when something will flick me in the sack… heh)

This batch also ended up being fairly harmless. I tend to pay ahead a little bit on my utilities… a habit that I picked up from my Aunt Carol… so both the electric and gas bills for this month had a credit listed, with no payment due. 😎 That was a good start, and then the envelope from the BMV was easy to open, since I’ve been expecting a 2021 sticker for my plate. But I saved the potential worst for last. 😳 A couple different, thicker envelopes from my additional “add-on” Medicare insurer.

But nope, those were good ones too. 🙂🤷🏻‍♂️ The first was a bunch of official looking statements about having contacted them for manual refiling of claims for the different medications that workers comp has been stiffing me on, and then the other one contained a check for over $900. 😯😃 So between this check and the one that I got a couple weeks ago, that’s pretty darn close to the amount that I have paid out of pocket for most of my meds over the past three months. 🙂👍🏻 Really, really surprised that ended up working out, since despite all my calls and stuff that I mailed in – they totally could have ghosted me or just said “Nah, piss off.” and it’s not like I could have done anything about it.

Maybe I shouldn’t say that too loud, just in case I need to go through another prolonged, pain-in-the-ass process like that with them again for some other medication. 😏

Different Distraction

I was a potato all morning, keeping the curtains closed, the doors shut, attempting to keep out as much of the bright daylight as possible. Just wasn’t ready to start the day. But once I did open up and got the cool breeze blowing through here, it gave me a little motivation to do something today. Already did the laundry, don’t really wanna just clean the kitchen or bathroom, so I think I’m gonna make this an “office” work day.

I recently moved Grandpa’s desk out to the living room so I’d have a “real” work space, along with making the desktop more practical to use… but all my little “mail holders / sorters” and misc paper trays have far too much crap in them. I couldn’t tell you off hand what it all is, since I take care of the bills as they come in – but yeah, I’ve got a buttload of papers that I can go through as I sit here and watch the race.

And when I say trays, I actually mean these nice metal / mesh things that I picked up at a thrift store a while back. So I’ve got trays, sorting things, a pen / pencil cup – and all of it matches nicely. So if I go through everything and get rid of all the crap, that’ll put me at a nice “starting point” as stuff starts to open up again. (Which probably means the workers comp situation will be coming back to life again as well.) I dunno, something about having everything tidy makes it easier to tackle whatever the next project may be.

And speaking of stuff being closed down for months… I’ve actually been doing some back and forth “mail stuff” with a certain company, trying to get some things taken care of, and I’ve been sitting here wondering what’s been causing the delay – since all of the paperwork has been completed and all of the needed documents sent in. I guess my brain was just assuming that it would be business as usual at a place like that, but now that I think about it – their offices are probably no different than any others, so I imagine that they’re either shut down or running with reduced staff just like everyone else.

Ugh… these commercials, man… more than half of them, during every effing commercial break, refer to the current situation in one way or another. Do any of those ads actually make anyone feel better? Are you relieved that the local burger joint is telling you that they’ve got your back? No. We watch TV to escape the thoughts of what’s going on outside our doors… and we sure don’t need to be reminded repeatedly during every damn commercial break. Heh… okay, time to be slightly productive… and sorry, I don’t really have the oomph to bother with text formatting or emojis… heh

I’m Ready

It’s approaching midnight on Friday, and I think that I’m finally ready to face this week. So, these next couple of hours better watch out, because I’m not feeling too bad at the moment. 😏 Heh… but seriously, this week has felt more “challenging” than usual. Although, as I’m sitting here trying to explain why, I can’t even really think of anything specific that should have made it feel that way. 🤔🤷🏻‍♂️ I dunno… I think all the “get ready, we’re opening” talk / news has just made my brain tired and my sleep shitty, which made every other small or “normal” thing feel that much more laborious. (I still got some chores done and got out of the house once or twice.)

But I’m not gonna sit here and try to remember all of the things from the past week that made it suck, ‘cuz I might end up damaging my calm. But yeah, this week… it definitely took me the entire week to be ready for whatever comes – and for the most part, nothing came. 😐🤷🏻‍♂️ So now that the weekend is here I’m much more prepared for it than I was the current week. 🤓 Hopefully that makes sense.

Ahh, I do know one thing that has improved my mood over the week… getting my two cats to tolerate each other. 😏 Yeah, I’ve officially adopted Maggie – a cat that I was formerly just babysitting – so it’s been a week of anxiously hoping that her and Maven didn’t feel the need to murder each other. 😾😅🙏🏻😾 Thankfully, possibly because they’re both too old to be bothered with such things, they don’t seem to have any desire to fight or be a pain in each other’s asses. (Although Maven does grump at her every now and then.)

They’re not even close to being buddy buddy, but they at least tolerate each other. In fact, I think they both actually like that there’s one “other critter” around, even if they don’t necessarily want to interact with that other critter. 😏 I have a short video of them simply sitting upright next to each other, no more than a foot apart, but neither one of them wanting to look at or acknowledge the other… 😁 … but both of them seeming to enjoy the moment in some way. (Purposely “ignoring” each other while making sure the other noticed.)

It would be too much to explain here in the blog, how I ended up with Maggie, but basically I was watching her while her previous owner was moving – but with things not going as planned there, the environment wouldn’t have been great for a kitty who’s already anxious and nervous all of the time. 😳😬 On her first day upstairs she went around the house looking for her former roommates, but once she realized they weren’t here – it’s almost like she felt relieved, because she started actually acting like a cat again rather than just hiding all the time and trying to avoid anything and anyone. 🥺😊

Maven and I lead a pretty tame life here in the house, and that’s exactly the kind of life that Maggie needs right now… so it just made sense for me to adopt her officially. It all depended on Maven being okay with it though, and since she hasn’t really done anything to indicate that she objects – it looks like this is a done deal. 🙂 See, just typing about the situation has made me smile… so hopefully I’ll hang on to that feeling through the weekend too. (As long as these two buttholes continue to play nice.)

Ready For Tomorrow

Not gonna go out and do any of my running today… and when I say “running” I obviously mean in terms of going around and handling my shit… but between my knee being sorta fucked and today being a holiday, I’ve decided to wait until tomorrow to go out.

My final prescription is ready to be picked up, but like my other one – workers comp didn’t cover it, so I’ll be paying for that out of pocket. (I’m starting to get a little anxious for the damn IC hearing to get rescheduled, so we can get this bullshit sorted out.) But I couldn’t wait and fight them any longer, hoping that they’d eventually give in and pay, since that script ran out today and I’ll actually need it tomorrow.

Also just got a call from Walmart, letting me know that my glasses came in today. This could end up being an interesting process, getting used to this new pair… since not only will it be my first time with bi-focals, but they’re no-line bi-focals and apparently have three distinct correction levels in each lens. I tend to look through the top of my glasses most of the time anyway, so I think that at least the distance vision won’t feel dramatically different. But I see some headaches in my future, literally, as I get used to them.

Gen’s still having a good time in Florida, sending me photos and videos of them on the beach, walking in the water, hanging out with an amazingly chill flock of seagulls, etc. (Much unlike the crazy birds in Atlantic City) Then there’s Jim, who’s still getting fuck-all when it comes to responses to his job applications. All these different places, with rejection e-mails that sound nearly identical… it makes a person wonder if a human even sees the applications, or if an AI just sorts folks into the “nope” pile before firing off an impersonal email.

But since I’ve got the laptop open (to do bills) I’m gonna putz around and see if I can find any job openings around him that he may have missed, or ones that he may not have initially believed he could do. Oh, and while I’ve posted various unlisted videos to YouTube lately for sharing with friends or family, last night I actually made and uploaded a public video. Not sure if it’ll get any views, but it was something easy to do with Google Earth and folks that used to live here when they were kids but have since moved away… it might be something they’d be interested in.

Okay, time to start a movie, get the bills done, and try to take it easy for a bit.

EDIT: Oh, and tonight… try to catch it…
If you time it right, at around 8:20pm you’ll be able to witness 20:20:20 on Jan 20, 2020. 🤓😏

Where’d The Weekend Go?

It’s been a busy few days again. Typical stuff with my workers comp doctor appointment at the end of last week. I mean, no problems there… but when it came to getting my prescriptions. A couple days of pain in the ass there, but it all appears to have been sorted out. Then as I was getting home from handling all that, that’s when Rick arrived to install the new garage door.

Not complaining about that… it was planned… but after dealing with the WC stress, coming home to immediate noise and commotion in the garage wasn’t exactly calming. Not just the constant sound of impact wrenches as they worked, but then also I’m too much of an empath – so I’m also sitting inside the house, cringing about what might go wrong as they work, making their job harder than it should be.

And of course, that’s what ended up happening. I joked with Dad that I “willed” it to happen, by stressing about it, but yeah… they got the door installed, it went up and down nice and smoothly, and it’s light enough that I can even open it with just my one good arm. But when they tried it with the new garage door opener, it immediately murdered itself. 😳 The opener, that is.

It’s obviously defective, because there’s no way that a product like this should be designed so that it’s allowed to do what it did. 🤨 He set the open and close points where the motor was supposed to stop – but upon the second test of raising the door, it just didn’t stop “raising” and it pulled the “puller” piece directly into the motor without stopping, without slowing down – with a crunch, spark, and puff of smoke. 😣😯 Awesome.

So I’ll be returning that one to Amazon here soon, probably having to drag it to the local UPS office, but that meant that Rick had to go to Menards early this morning to get a different opener, take down the first new one, and then put up the second new one before the whole shpeal worked at it should. 🙄😏 So if it wasn’t for the suicidal first opener, he would have been done last night – but I’ll look at the positive, which is that I no longer needed a heavy-duty opener anyway, and the one that he picked up was considerably cheaper than the one I’ll be getting my money back for. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Oh, and he swapped out my old mailbox for the new one without me even asking. 😅 (The saga ends… heh)

You can see why I wasn’t anxious to do any Black Friday shopping this year though, eh? 😟 Between new tires for the car, a big ol’ capacitor and intake fan for the old furnace, new garage door, new garage door opener… and of course all the labor costs for that stuff… plus having to pay for my WC meds first in order to get them this month, now having to return the defective first opener, still needing to make an eye appointment and get new glasses, blah blah blah…

I mean, it’s fine… yeah, I’m bitching, but nothing was overpriced… it just feels like a whole bunch of shit all at once, and being the tight ass that I am – it’s just not a lot of fun writing all these checks. 😏 Gotta remind myself that I now have a happy furnace, a happy car, and a place to put that happy car again… not to mention being able to unload groceries directly into the kitchen without killin’ myself by dragging them through the house via the front door. But it’s my blog, and I felt like whining a little bit. 😋 (Even though I’m already planning a few more small home improvement projects with Rick after the holidays are over… 🤷🏻‍♂️🙂)

Blank Slate

With the way my past few days had gone, and then getting suckered in by that early evening nap yesterday, I sure didn’t expect to get a decent night of sleep last night anyway and then wake up feeling as good as I do. Keep in mind, it’s always “relatively speaking” when I talk about how I feel… but yup, not too tired, aches and pains aren’t too bad, and whatever ick I’ve been slowly fighting off seems like it may finally be gone.

It’s even fairly warm outside, so I’m gonna go ahead and open up the house to blow some stink out, and maybe do a little of this and that around the house as I watch the race. (Even though, honestly, I probably won’t even really be watching it. I’ve lost so much buzz for NASCAR over the past couple of years.) The only mandatory thing for the day is getting the mail opened and bills caught up, but I have a feeling that this will be the first day in a while where I’ll be able to be a little more productive than that without it taking some sort of toll on me. 🙂 It feels silly to be kinda excited about that, but that speaks to how crappy I feel most days.

And when I was at Walgreens to pick up Dad’s prints the other day, I also went ahead and grabbed what will be a purpose-specific little notebook so I can continue to get my shit together. Sure, I could do it on my phone, but I’ve just been wanting a notebook where (all in one place) I can start listing out all my doctors, addresses, phone numbers, meds prescribed by each one, etc… and in another part I’ll do the same with my lawn guy, potential other handyman/repair/service/etc type people or companies. Just wanting to inject a little more order into my sometimes aimless life. Even if doing all that is almost just for a placebo effect, it’s gonna make my brain happier if I do this and then have all of that information right there at hand whenever I need it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Meh… guess I should stop rambling and get to enjoyin’ the day, eh? 😏 It could be a one-off…  heh

Mob Mentality

It’s frustrating to go on Twitter and see the digital lynch mob going after Joel Osteen and his church over the past 24 hours. Apparently part of the facility was flooded, as is much of Houston and the surrounding areas, and several of their own staff had to be rescued from their homes due to the rising water – so it wasn’t until yesterday that they were able to open up the church to anyone that might be needing shelter.

But none of that mattered to the angry cavemen. It doesn’t matter that he’s hosted charity concerts there to raise money for flood victims. It doesn’t matter that the church was offered and used as a shelter for Tropical Storm Allison victims. It doesn’t matter what “good” the church has done for the people of that community, because the outrage junkies caught word that the doors weren’t open for some reason, and they were out for blood.

There was a “re-tweet campaign” that was demanding that Osteen open the doors. Demanding. That’s the word they chose. “Why aren’t you helping?” “Are you going to donate your millions of dollars?” “This shows how much of a Christian you aren’t!” “Fake Joel Osteen, you’re a crook and a liar!” “The false prophet bows to pressure on Twitter” “Opening your church now is only PR damage control!” “(insert any flavor of cursing and name calling here)” and some asshole even went down to the church himself to film an “AH HAH!” video, showing that the church wasn’t flooded, even though he didn’t go inside to actually see one way or the other.

Good going, guy. You’re making a fuss about someone not doing enough for the victims, but you are using your time and energy doing this – rather than something productive to help people. 🤦🏻 And when the doors opened, it’s not like there was a huge queue of people waiting to get in. In fact, maintenance people inside the church said that the facility was open for quite a while before anyone even showed up. See, we don’t even know the state of affairs down there… like, are all of the other shelters full? Have people been forced to sleep in the streets because Osteen’s church couldn’t open until yesterday? Or are people just being pissed off for the sake of being pissed off?

A staggering amount of people are using this as a trigger to attack religion and Christianity specifically. They’re ranting about how false the mega-church pastors are, how it’s not about God and only about money, and using it as a “SEEEEE?!?!” moment – where they can feel vindicated in their thoughts about Osteen being a hypocrite and only in it for the cash and fame. It’s an amazing(ly sad) thing to watch. 😢

• “I can’t open the church yet. It’s a bit flooded and staff can’t make it in.”
• YOU’RE FULL OF SHIT YOU LYING BASTARD! FUCK YOU!!!
• “Hey, we got it cleaned up enough and have some air mattresses now, c’mon down.”
• YOU’RE ONLY OPENING BECAUSE WE MADE YOU! FUCK YOU!!!

*sigh*

Someone get me off of this planet. 😒

EDIT: Click here for a more in-depth version of the story from the Osteen’s side of it.