OT August Chit Chat

[Virginia]

Peg, thanks for getting us started this month. Hope the MRI goes well tomorrow. A dog who has her own pool - Howie's cat will be jealous!

Howie, that cat of Agate's really looks like it has been to you for Dental work.

Agate, sorry you had to be out in that heat. Glad you are an early riser and could get up and get there and get back home. It is hotter here between 4 and 6 also. Strange, growing up I don't remember that. I do hope you will not have to get new hearing aids.

Nuthatch, sorry you are again under stress. I do hope your daughter's home will not get hit by this fire. Keep us informed about this.

Cat, that was good advice for those of us who do not sweat. I forget all that because I have not sweated in a number of years.

[Virginia]

By the way, there is only one member on here right now - must be me! There are 31 visitors. Strange, but they are welcome. Wish they would post.

[Howie]

I'm here, but I'm just visiting.

[agate]

Welcome to the board, Howie! Maybe you could tell us a little about yourself. Do you have any pets? We'd LOVE to see your MRI report if you have it handy.

Doesn't everyone keep an MRI report within easy reach?

I've heard something about you. Actually it was kind of odd. Somebody said you're really a sponge.

I don't think that was a very nice thing to say.

I'm not sure how they feel about sponges around here.

[Earth Mother 2 Angels]

((((((Hugs to All)))))) ~

We should probably ask Mike Weins or Moderator #7 about the number of "guests" visiting any forum here. I think it was explained once in Forum Feedback that the "guests" are actually spammers (like spam bots) and not real people. I think this also applies to the number of views on threads. We think we have a lot of people visiting, lurking, reading ... but it might just be a technological thing, like a roaming bot. As I said, we should ask Mike or Mod #7 about this for verification. I'm not the most reliable source right now, as I'm quite tired.

Love & Light,

Rose

[Howie]

Ah Agate, you figured out it was just me. But I could dig out that MRI report again if you have missed it THAT much!

Rose, you are probably right about the spammers and spam bots. The web is awash with that stuff. It's too bad.

[Howie]

Well, dishes I let pile up are washed, dried, and put away. One bag of trash ready for the dump, and even moved some furniture around in the living room. I'm drinking the last of my coffee, and next I will get my checks ready to mail out in the morning.

Payday tomorrow, glorious payday! I have again been poor this month, but should get ahead...I hope. I have my 6 month dr. visit late in the month. Last time it was that "spend down" stuff again which I STILL don't understand.

Everyone have a great day!

[agate]

You had to do a spend-down? You have my sympathies.

For years I had to do them routinely, twice a year. It was necessary for Medicaid eligibility in cases like mine, where my income put me just a bit above the cutoff point.

If your income is below a certain level--say, $800/month (i just picked that figure and don't know what the level is currently)--you're automatically eligible for Medicaid. But if it's above that amount, they figure out how much you need to spend on medical expenses (and document for them) before you become eligible for Medicaid coverage.

For me this meant that every 6 months I went into a frenzy of stocking up on prescriptions and doctor-authorized nonprescription medical items, going to dentists and doctors as needed, etc., so I could submit all of the spend-down paperwork and hope that it would be processed in a timely way and I"d once again have Medicaid coverage.

This usually meant that for at least two months of every year, often 4 months, I had no Medicaid coverage and would just have to hope no huge medical problems came along. If they did, I had to pay for them and submit the receipts.

Sometimes that did happen, and I'd have a whopping medical expense that caused me to spend far more on medical stuff than I would have needed to qualify for Medicaid. Supposedly I'd get reimbursed for the extra that I'd spent but it was a battle to get the reimbursement.

And the people in charge (Department of Social and Health Services, in WA) sometimes took their own sweet time processing the paperwork. They were allowed 90 days.

But at least I came out of it with Medicaid coverage, which covers just about everything except glasses and dental. There were years when it actually did include glasses and dental as well. My spend-down requirement every 6 months was between $600-$1000 if I remember right.

This state I'm in now hasn't said anything about spend-downs. I don't know if it has them, or if it has, I no longer have to do them. But it has a two-tiered Medicaid system, and to get into the other "fancier" tier I'd need to pay $195/month. So it's very much like a spend-down.

[Virginia]

Agate, that would be so nerve racking for me. If I had to go through that every six months, I would need a Doctor's care just to help me get through it - maybe a phycologist.

Howie, rest up the rest of the day because tomorrow is a big day for you.

I am so let down to find out that is just bots or either spammers that are on here. I thought we were really that interesting.

I am nervous about my furniture. I have not had any reupholstered in over 20 years and don't remember the name of the man that did that work back then. My furniture was picked up Monday and they told me this morning that they thought they would have it back Friday. Now this is a large couch, 4 small pillows that came on the couch, 1 larger one that I had them make. Then there is the wingback chair and ottoman and also six dining room chairs. I am concerned about what the workmanship will be like. I only had one person who recommended them and I didn't know anyone else so I just went with them without checking anything out. Now I am scared. Seems like this is way too fast.

[Sunshine]

There is something inhumane requiring very ill people to go through this quagmire

[agate]

Virginia, have you checked out the company you're using for reupholstering? On Yelp or Angie's List or with the Better Business Bureau? Sometimes customers' comments can be very helpful. Angie's List has a free membership now.

As for the "guests" online here, for a long time I was sure they were bots or spammers too but more recently I'm wondering.

I think that at least some of those "guests" are people who used to be here and are coming back to look in. This place was so densely populated for so long that at least some of them must still be curious sometimes. I can think of dozens of people who were in here almost daily for years and years.

I'm going to stop looking at the weather forecast today. It keeps saying 110' for today, 109' for tomorrow, and 98' for Thursday. (Oh whoopee! A cooling trend!)

[Cat Dancer]

I need a new couch, and a chair reupholstered that the cats have been using as a scratching post. But....at my age and condition, and TC's age....I'm not going to spend the money. Whoever is stuck with the stuff when I'm gone will probably just haul it off to the dump, anyway.

So, for the last, oh. 9 months or so my DISH (television satellite) service has been faltering. We'd be watching, me in my bedroom, TC in the living room, and suddenly the screen would go blue, and we'd get this message "complete signal loss", or "partial signal loss". At first, it (now we know coincidentally) appeared that foul weather was to blame -- it was cloudy, or rainy, or snowy, or something.... and we'd joke, "well, our own weather television .. we know the weather is bad because the satellite went out". Then it started happening more often. wind? No? So TC would climb on the roof, check the dish receiver. ... no, it was not blocked, no trees grown up in the way.

Each time this happened we called DISH, and they'd walk us through all these machinations with the remote....unplug everything, plug back in; pull the chip out of the receiver, wipe it off, put it back in; push these series of buttons on the remote; do a dance naked in front of the screen (I made up that last one...). Usually we'd get the picture back....only to have it go out again a few days later. I'd call, we'd go through the routine again. I got to the point that I had the routine down, and didn't bother to call ..just did the steps (which means TC has to move a dresser to get to the plug to unplug the set...long story, there).

Anyway. I became convinced that it was bad equipment, and I didn't care how often we'd do the song and dance, the equipment was bad. Either the dish on the roof was broke or the receiver box was broke or the connections to/from all the stuff was broke....whatever....I was *not going to do this stuff one more time*....

So I called them up...and told them, in very clear language (no, I didn't pull a scaramoochie on them, but I was tempted), that they were either going to fix it or I was going to drop their service altogether. This girl then tells me I have to go through the song-and-dance. I refuse. I tell her I'm in a wheelchair, my husband is 76, we are NOT going to do this again, so I guess I'll cancel.

At which point she is sending a service technician to our house with a brand new receiver, new dish, new recorder, new remotes, all FREE, and promised the technician will hook up everything and not leave the house until he is sure everything is working properly, and we know how to USE the stuff (we never did know how to record anything off the TV .. we've had the DISH service for..oh...12 years or more without being able to record anything).

To celebrate, we bought two new flat screen TV's (our old ones are "regular" TV's...don't know what they're called...at least not tube tvs... ). Presumably they'll be delivered on Thursday, and the service tech is coming on Saturday, so we'll have time to open up the boxes, check out the new TV's, and remove the old ones before he arrives. If all the deliveries are as now scheduled. Otherwise, we'll just have him hook up to the old TV's, and we'll deal with rehooking them, later. :)

We don't watch a lot of TV .. almost none of the new shows...but I sorely miss the news, MSNBC, TC misses the History Channel, and a few others. I wish we could pick and choose which stations we want - as it is, there are dozens that we never watch, and we have the basic cable service. Where we live here in the country, we'd have no tv at all if we didn't have some sort of satellite service -- just one station, very snowy, will come in, even with a really good antenna.

So I filled up the charge card with TV's, and am now trying to figure out where to put the other ones until I find a new home for them....assuming the new ones will work OK. Anybody wanna TV??

[Virginia]

Cat, with dish do you need USB cables? I had them long ago, but it was before I got cable. So all I remember is that I had to get USB cables to go with the flat screen. Maybe that is because I am hooked up to cable. Just to make sure before the Dish man comes out make sure there is nothing else you need. You can always call Dish back and talk to them some more. I know you just love doing that.

Agate, it is too late now to check the upholstery folks out. They have cut my material. I just went with advice from one person I know.

Cat, you and TC are younger than I am, but I wanted something different to look at. Suppose I live here for another 5 years and carry this furniture with me somewhere else (a home) after that? It really was not worn looking, just dated looking and I needed a lift. Hope I do not regret this.

[Howie]

I only have antenna TV, and get 40 channels. Best of all, it's free. In all, I have about 6 I ever watch, but that's plenty.

I took a nap this afternoon, and just woke up awhile ago. I'm ready to do my running around tomorrow.

[agate]

It's almost time for funds! Are we having funds yet?

It's down to 102' here though at one point it said 107' today. I don't know if it got to the predicted 110'.Not while I was watching.

I get PBS sometimes--and there are two PBS channels to choose from here. Yesterday for some reason I couldn't get it at all. Today it was spotty--off-and-on reception. I have to keep repositioning the leaf antenna.

And now I'll probably need to rearrange all the furniture in the bedroom to move my bed across the room. It's up against the wall that adjoins the next door neighbor's apartment, and the walls are thin.

I did hear my next door neighbor who was a night owl, and I think she heard me sometimes too. Even without my hearing aids I'd hear noises.

She moved, and now they've rented that apartment to two people. They're almost sure to be noisier.

I thought I had to have the bed by the phone and the emergency pullcord but I found out that there's no rule about it. (Something they didn't make a rule about? How did that happen?)

So I can do this--though not on a 100+' degree day.

The new arrangement will mean that the bed blocks a heating unit, and they won't like that, but with every inspection I'll move it out the regulation 12 inches.

I don't ever use that heating unit now that I have my space heater, which is quieter and does a better job.

I've measured everything many times, and it should work. Measure ten times, move stuff once.

I'll need to empty out a dresser and a file cabinet in order to move them but it's doable.

I can write it up here as in the "Keep Moving" thread.

Virginia, I hope you'll describe your new upholstery. New upholstery must be almost like moving to a newly furnished place.