Fri. Oct. 1, 2021: It’s a Little Chilly in Here

image courtesy arthouse studio via pexels.com

Friday, October 1, 2021

Waning Moon

Pluto, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Chiron, Uranus, Mercury Retrograde

Foggy, chilly, raw

The photo is what I WISH I was doing right now – hot cocoa by a working fireplace.

If you read the above, add this: the heat’s not working. It was slightly chilly on Wednesday in the house, about 66 degrees, so I thought I’d turn on the heat, test it for the winter, get the chill out.

Nothing.

The thermostat said “heat on” but nothing came through the radiators.

Yesterday, it was down to 63 degrees in here. I called the maintenance guy, figuring there was just another switch somewhere I needed to hit. He said there shouldn’t be, and sent a guy over to check it out. The guy looked at the thermostat, and went down to the basement to check and make sure the pilot was on.

It wasn’t the pilot.

He worked on it for awhile, then had to go away for a bit, so we took the opportunity to run our errands – which set off a whole other set of whatevers, which I will get to in a minute.

At the end of the day, he told us that it was a valve, and the landlord ordered it. It will take a few days to get here.

Fortunately, it’s not that cold yet. I mean, it’s 60 degrees in the apartment this morning, but I’ll be baking, so it will get warmer. And the weekend is supposed to be in the 70’s. So we’ll be okay, at least until early next week. If the part is delayed, then the landlord has to figure out, with us, what to do in the interim.

Again, better to find out now than in the middle of a snowstorm.

We’re all aware of the legalities of the landlord being required by law to provide heat, but that only kicks in as of October 15. If it gets really cold before then, I’m sure he will have a solution. He has an excellent reputation, and has been an all-around good guy thus far.

We’re a little chilly, but we’re in sweater and added blankets and hot water bottles, so it’s not awful.

We’ll see how it goes next week.

As far as the errands went, we went to CVS to see if we could negotiate refills on the medications my mom needs while we try to sort out the insurance issues, since Tufts is being bitchy because we “didn’t ask permission” to move. Um, we don’t need to get the insurance company’s permission to move to a place we can afford.

The pharmacist was lovely and worked some magic to get the two refills immediately needed at a price I can actually afford. Unlike the clerk at the Centerville CVS who offered to sell us the refill before the move under the table for $3/pill. Which would have cost us $300 for a month’s supply, which would have also gone straight into her pocket.

At this CVS, watching how the pharmacists actually listened to and worked with their customers, it made me realize how awful the Centerville CVS was. Anything ever asked there was “no” or “we can’t do that” which included the shots they were supposed to give. There was always an excuse not to give a shot. Remember a few years ago, where they kept scheduling and then refusing to give my mom her shingles shot several times a week for six weeks? And we finally just signed up and got it at a different pharmacy?

They’re giving the Pfizer booster, although I have to sign up online (which, no doubt, will be a magilla), but at least they’re doing it, AND looking after people during the waiting period.

Then, it was off to Wild Oats and Stop & Shop. When we got back, I put a hunk of pork into the crockpot on high, so we’d have a hot dinner.

We got a letter from Medicare stating that my mom has paid her medication deductible and Tufts is supposed to cover the rest of her medication for the year. So THAT’s why Tufts dropped her – not because of the move, but because she fulfilled the deductible. They really are vile.

More information to send over to Elizabeth Warren’s office. Her office is helping sort this insurance mess out.

Kitty drama galore, too. Yesterday morning, Tessa and Charlotte achieved peaceful co-existence on the sofa by having a blanket fort between them. Later in the day, Tessa went into the sewing room and curled up on the guest bed – on Charlotte’s pink blanket (one of her prized possessions, which she brought to the household when we adopted her), after playing with Charlotte’s catnip banana. Tessa has never been on that bed, since we moved in here.

Charlotte was not amused. But that is Tessa’s way of getting back at Charlotte, because sometimes Charlotte sleeps on the guest bed in the third bedroom, near the front porch, (a room we’ve nicknamed “Tessa’s room” because her food dishes are in there), and Charlotte stole Tessa’s catnip banana.

Willa is smart enough to stay out of it.

I played with them again with the laser toy before bed, and they let me sleep until 4:46, so that’s a win for the day.

I didn’t get much work done yesterday, so I have to make up for it today, in and around the decorating. Because it’s October 1, which means it’s decorating day. I’m sure I’ll post photos on Instagram throughout the weekend.

I’m reading M.L. Rio’s IF WE WERE VILLAINS, set at a Shakespeare Conservatory, and, so far, I love it.

I’ll bake an apple cake later, and I’m making fish and chips tonight, so that will keep the oven on a good bit today.

Think warm thoughts for me, have a good weekend, and I’ll catch you on the other side.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

City Hall Park, NYC

Thursday, April 22, 2010
Waxing Moon
Cloudy and warm
Earth Day

Yesterday, I was pretty much a waste of food. Sore from the walking the previous day, exhausted and overwhelmed by everything going on. Didn’t get much done, other than the grocery shopping, some business, and getting a few things packed up to go to storage.

A box of books arrived from Strand — the research books I needed to add to my library, after all that research in CT last week. Now I’ve got the books at my fingertips as I write — makes things so much easier. One of them — which I didn’t see at the library, but looks fascinating — is about the use of biological weapons such as poison arrows and scorpion poison, in ancient times. That opens all kinds of possibilities for fiction — maybe I can even weave some of it into the steampunk.

They also included a biography of Anne Sexton, by Diane Middlebrook. Fascinating. However, when one is exhausted and dealing with serious illness in the family, perhaps reading the life of a suicidal poet is not the best choice.

Elsa seems to improve with all these drugs, although she’s still sneezing a lot and has some bloody discharge. She’s lively and engaged, keeping to her schedule. Both vets said the medicine would cause lethargy, nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite. Instead, she’s livelier than she’s been in weeks, and eating ravenously. Hopefully, tomorrow, we can get an accurate diagnosis and find a way to keep her steady WITHOUT so many prescription drugs. I am not a fan of the pharmaceutical industry — I want to find the cause of the problem and deal with it, not just mask symptoms. I think carefully managed medicines are fine to use as a means to an end — but there has to be an ending where the drugs are no longer used. Whether it’s a person or an animal.

I need to see if Strand has the book I didn’t buy at the museum the other day — if not, I’ll call the museum and have them ship it.

Hopefully, I can get some writing done and clear other business out of the way. I need to prepare for tomorrow — to get to the appointment on time, I have to have Elsa packed into the car before 9 AM.

The President is in NYC today, to talk about financial reform. Glad I’m not trying to get around downtown today — I couldn’t! i’ve only read the first 600 pages of the bill. First of all, I don’t think it goes anywhere near far enough. Second, as usual, the Republicans are misrepresenting the bill — or maybe they simply are incapable of cognitive reading, which means they shouldn’t be in office — there’s certainly nothing in the first 600 pages to indicate future bailouts — in fact, it seems to be trying to prevent that. I skimmed the rest of the bill and don’t see anything even remotely as a euphemism for “bailout”. There’s either deliberate misrepresentation going on (par for the course) or these politicians are too stupid to actually comprehend what they read, which opens up a whole other Pandora’s box. Or perhaps they’re having staff members read the bill and give a report — and the staff members can’t comprehend what they read. Is the bill badly written? They’re not going to make the bestseller lists anytime soon, let’s put it that way, but it’s certainly easy to understand if you have the most basic comprehension skills. It’s written in typical legislative-ese, which means I’m itching to take the red pen and rewrite whole chunks of it to be clearer. Honestly, I think it could say the same thing and say it better in half the words. But that’s not my job. It is my job, as a citizen, to know what the hell is in there — and know it firsthand, not second hand from pundits or press with other agendas, so I can tell my senators my position on it, where I think it needs to be strengthened, and how, ultimately, I’d like them to vote on it. But it’s not a good beach read, y’know?

My mom’s doctor’s office is all screwed up — they demand that she have a bloodtest before her next appointment on Tuesday, but they “can’t get around” to putting the order in for the bloodwork, and the lab won’t do a blood draw without the order. I used to temp in doctors’ offices, all over the country, dealing with front desk, appointments, and paperwork — you stay until whatever needs to get done for the day is done. This is people’s health at stake. There’s no such thing as “can’t get around to it” — especially at an establishment like that one, which has steadily lost patients over the last few years because they’re so disorganized. The doctor herself is great, and my mom, who is 86 and doesn’t like change, doesn’t want to change doctors, but the admin staff totally sucks. And today, they will have to deal with ME, and they will wish they’d gotten it right the first three times.

Trying to get stuff done,

Devon