The Old Tree

Steve recently changed doctors, not because he found any fault with the one both of us connected with when we relocated to this area, but because his insurance company announced it was parting ways with him - he'd had an expensive year - and the company he located to replace them informed him his current doc was "out of network".

And they call this "Advantage" Medicare! Advantage only to them of course. The approved doc is only half the distance away from us, and she also is approved by this year's insurance. Since he'd be covered visiting her immediately, he went to his "get acquainted" new doctor visit, and has been getting his lab work there now as well. Even better, instead of the former clinic having only two handicap parking slots, meaning many times I drop him at the door and go find distant parking, now he leaves the car one space either side of the  new clinic's front door, simply making it easier for both of us, since I can assist him inside if needed, or out when he's feeling drained.

They have a large lobby right as you walk in, which has a wall-sized set of windows in its waiting room facing the same lake we're around a curve on. Irregularities of the shoreline mean we can't see the clinic from home, nor home from the clinic. But what we can see through that huge window area is an old tree near the lakeshore. In our two visits, I've never seen a leaf on it. Just the "bones" of that magnificent old survivor, if survivor is what it is. It was already fall for our first visit, so I can't tell if it shed its leaves weeks ago, or years ago. 

From the window it's downhill, standing in front of the rest of the shore, the lake, the far side still holding muted color in scattered trees, but mostly the ever moving clouds, some frustrated artist rearranging  the tree's background minute by minute. The area is cleared well around it, so it owns that piece of shore.

 It caught my eye the moment we walked in for the first visit. It held its spot in memory for the weeks we were away, reminding me to bring the camera this time, knowing I'd never be content if I didn't have a chance to capture it as it was, as it changed. I didn't manage to catch the small flock of crows except in memory as they flew in, landed, and promptly left for better foraging elsewhere, though as they flew off, the tree stood strong, independent, a testament only of itself once unbothered, and proud in its silence once more. 

I did capture that.

I'm looking forward to it wearing winter.

AI... Predictably Stupid

Maybe it's the programmers, repeating the same mistakes. Maybe it's the website holders deciding they need more MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!

Maybe I'm just grumpier these days as the computer keeps getting more and more tangled up with "improvements" - like when cell phones claiming to be "smart" keep trying to become so.

It's not a new pattern. Especially with advertisers, my particular beef of the day. My beef is about what they believe is their pork. Let's go back to when I bought my last car, 2013. Immediately I got swamped with ads for buying all kinds of other new cars. Seriously, folks? I just bought a new one, have a modest but livable budget, and you think this is the time to deluge me with MORE NEW CAR ADS? Back then, if that's what passes for human intelligence, no wonder people started looking for artificial intelligence. I'm just still surprised that they think they've found/developed it.

What a shame they programmed it - when they figured out how to program it - using the same idiot mistakes as before. I bought something once, so obviously I'm in the market for lots and lots more of "whatevers".

BTW, I still own and drive that car. It still gets great mileage. Insurance is cheap enough and so are license tabs. It's had a couple repairs. A new one's price has tripled since then. No way I'm in the market for a new one. Not even a new-to-me used one. If any intelligence lived out in the advertising world, you might have considered additives to improve what I had. Cheaper, but handy, like the nice steering wheel cover I added to protect hands from extreme heat or cold. Or later, the set belt extenders I put in when the old ones - very well used - started to gum up instead of rolling smoothly. The new extenders for both front seats are absolutely perfect and about a 15th of the price for both than to replace a single belt. It's called"aftermarket" for a reason! Get creative! Or stop claiming intelligence!!!! Go find a useful job somewhere, please, for both our sakes.

My recent gripe is being inundated with ads now wherever I go, enough to crowd out the window I'm trying to work in. Good thing Blogspot hasn't jumped on that bandwagon... yet? First case in point comes from having misplaced a very special vest, polar fleece heavy enough to be more than decorative, bought during a trip to Alaska with my youngest son and my granddaughter when she was in high school. I know I still had it last year. I searched my closets again and again looking for it, my frustration trying to convince me I'd somehow missed it, perhaps having it share a hanger with something else, something I never do. Maybe it fell on the floor? Nope. I tried to find out if the company selling it those decades ago was still in business and still had them. Nope, or at least no online presence. Then I went generically online looking for heavy duty polar fleece vests. 

Still no joy. Topping it off, I'm now besieged with ads for all kind of MEN'S outerwear. Do the marketing idiots believe only men need good warm outerwear? Have they never experienced winters? Not only did I not find anything resembling the previous purchase, the forthcoming ads weren't supplying them either, not even at 4x the price! Nobody reads the word "fleece"? Had anybody had it the first time I likely would already have bought one!  Idiots! And had I bought one, I'd no need for two. Those last forever... until they go walkabout.

That's not an isolated event. If you're following me, you know I just completed a large project that is to become EVERYBODY's Christmas present this year, just variations based on the recipient. Completed means not only are they all ordered, I'm told by UPS they will be delivered to me tomorrow. The plan first was to split the order, spending half this month and half next, but the ordering process was challenging enough just to get started that I decided while I was doing it and had assistance, I'd just go ahead and finish it at one go. Then I wouldn't need to recall the little tricks for getting perfection or a facsimile thereof when next ordering the other half. I'd worried about weight of a single box with all in it, but instead I've arranged for assistance to bring it in off the porch. Looking ahead at weather reports, having it on the porch for a few hours shouldn't be a problem for the goods or the box. And besides, our helper can reset our highest wall clock back to standard time, since we can't reach it. (It's perfect for its spot. We aren't.) And he's good company, that son of mine.

Now knowing what I was planning with my order, and the size of it, it is possible to assume I'm wealthy I suppose, or perhaps a shop owner, and will continue to place orders like it on a regular basis, like daily, based on the fact that everywhere I go online that isn't already smothered in outerwear ads is now smothered in ads from various companies for what I just ordered, despite how erroneous that assumption is. Amazing how many companies like that there are. As for me, I'm looking at the bill for this time, and even accounting for elimination shipping costs for that sized order, wondering if I'll ever do that again! Some even have to be shipped out again, with family spread as wide as it is. This may forever be a one-off.

The ads are even messing up my email, which was already messed up enough because that company just changed everything, making decisions for me on what I did and didn't want to see, where I wanted to have it located, and now using the spaces I used to have for spillover and/or more space to view enlarged thumbnails as a sidebar of pictures I get sent by family, to fill them with ads instead. OK, you young folks out there with good eyesight, when the thumbnail comes in the size of keys on my laptop, and is supposed to show a group of people at a family birthday party, even if only three are in the group, and there's no way left to me any more to preview the shots in a larger format, can you actually still see them? I can't, and my trifocals are still in really great condition. I could go over to Facebook to view them since the sender posts all kinds of pictures of family there, and Steve actually does go there. I shouldn't have to. I don't use it. I don't like it. I worry about parents of young children posting photos for the world to access, no matter what protections one thinks are in place. Where do you think advertisers get their ideas for sending ads?

I have so many issues with my email system changes that I'm contemplating changing my service and address. The current email company has been my always company, if you consider the earliest small company  - frontiernet.net - got dumped by the phone company Frontier which originated them and sent us all over to the larger company, Yahoo. Basically nothing changed in that process. The new changes were sprung on us years later without notice. 

But hey, they ask for feedback! 

Whoopeeee!

It's just a tiny form they  give me to fill something in. I just add a new complaint each time I head over there. Nothing has changed/improved there. So....  what? I'm unique in the world?  LOL! How about they pay no attention? Maybe they will if enough of us complain about wanting our email to be ..... just email! Something we control for where incoming stuff goes, their choice between visible and hidden. A place where we can delete spam by our own choice instead of thinking people dropped communicating with us because the system decided we don't want to hear from them despite incoming email being the reply to outgoing! Not to mention a place where something once deleted isn't saved in the system anyway, not just the sender for future deletions, for so long after being deleted that I suddenly have 3,000 plus old ones clogging my world that it takes me hours to get rid of them individually AGAIN! And I can't  even trust now they ever went away!

Does it take somebody as old as I am to recall that "yahoo" used to be a way of describing somebody as clueless, rustic, even stupid?  For you younger folks, never call one of us geezers a "Yahoo" unless you want to face the consequences! Meanwhile Yahoo email seems to be trying to live down to its name.

When whoever runs a system as badly as that, decided to let ads come in and cover half their formerly usable space, let them run mindlessly with ads no longer relevant in one's life or budget, I conclude only a whole lot of stupid is at work out there. Whether I'm correct in thinking AI or actual humans are at work behind those scenes now, the original sources are stupid humans.  That makes it predictable. 

GIGO still rules.

Out The Morning Window

 This was our first frost this fall, very late for here. We just barely hit freezing, and was forecast to do so, making me decide to head out the night before to both empty and bring inside our rain gauge, which over the last couple of weeks has accumulated another two inches of badly needed rain in dribs and drabs, none individually worth emptying the gauge for.  I was kind to the garden spot it was perched on, and drained the water out there to make up for what was blocked. The gauge is now inside for the winter. Freezing water likely would break it.

With standard time back again, it's easier to get morning views of what's going out the window. I can sleep in a bit and not miss things. Today was almost a miracle, the first cloudless morning in what was starting to seem like forever. Lots of clouds, not enough for rain, way too many to see stars, seem to have been the rule for forever.

Today we have blue skies, no wind (yet), and two directions of large window views of the morning. Straight west the next roof over is the same level as ours despite the slight hill, dark grey shingles which turn black when wet. Many days we see crows pausing on it, though recently there has been an actual raven! This morning instead of wildlife their roof was covered with frost. 

As the sun climbed the frost sparkled, starting from the peak and slowly inching down as it cleared our roof. With no wind and no leaves on that roof, it was our heads moving that brought out the sparkles the frost produced. I wondered how long before the frost all melted. Just after the show eased its way down to the gutters the roof warmed enough to briefly go wet black,  then back to a dry grey. The sparkles were done.

Out the large window to the north, across the street and behind the home in our view, a huge tree resides. It has provided entertainment since we moved in, with fanned out branches gracefully curving away from the main trunk and each other, and then down to the sides, a superhighway for squirrels to play in, chasing each other back and forth and back again, usually in threes. It's not one of the trees with nests in it, just their playground. The closest nest is two large trees uphill from it, and our view of where they go in either direction from the tree we watch is blocked while in our chairs by the limits of the window.

Fall turned the tree a bright solid yellow gold. As it's on private property, I haven't gone to check any leaves for species information, but there are lots of maples and oaks in the neighborhood which it definitely isn't. The bark is too dark for aspen or birch, the leaves to fat for willow, so we satisfy ourselves with just enjoying it.

 Recent rains and winds have knocked about 3/4 of its; leaves off. We watched then steadily drop under light rain yesterday morning, with a light breeze carrying them across roofs and onto mown grass., even onto the paved street. This morning there is not a whisper of breeze - yet -  but they still drop. A small dark bird is hopping from spot to spot, searching, and moving on. Leaves still cover much of the roof directly under it, with more on the grass and pavement everywhere on that side of the street. We don't seem to have been "blessed" by any of them.

However, yesterday when I returned home from shopping, at the home straight across from ours, plenty of noise drew my attention to that neighbor's yard. Enough leaves had dropped that she had already hired somebody with a blower to round up the leaves for bagging. After looking at the leaves on her grass that the fellow with the blower hadn't gotten to yet, and then looking up at how many were left on her neighbor's tree,  I just thought to myself. "Yup. she'll be having to hire that done again this season!" A quick step out with my camera this morning proved my point. 

Our yard? The hydrangeas are dropping yellow leaves as well as holding on to them. I have definite plans to ignore them all... except maybe with a camera, which I've already used to document their fall color changes last week. We'll see.

My Other Civic Duty

 It was raining, should all day, and totals here are expected for .01 inch per hour. Judging by how drenched I am, the amount of rain running down the street, and how fast the rain is knocking yellow leaves off trees as witnessed from the living room window, they are wayyyyyy wrong on that amount.

It's all good. We still need it. And we went and voted anyway.  For most elections the city hall, our precinct's location, is stocked with election workers and devoid of voters that time in the morning. Today, in the rain, both of their parking lots and the street were full. That included handicap parking spaces. I dropped Steve off by the door and found a spot where somebody was leaving. That was our first planned-as-mandatory civic duty, come rain, shine, or ... well, that blizzard year wasn't an election year, so blizzards haven't actually been tested yet. We always vote anyway, but this time it's IMPORTANT!!!

We want our DEMOCRACY back! 

This month our second half of our property taxes are due. The first half was paid on time, a quick walk into the county courthouse, another town over.  As usual I enter talking my way out of the metal detector due to my pacemaker and letting them decide what they need to do in order to clear me. This is usually nothing besides emptying pockets and opening the other door for me, the one not holding the metal detector. I must have an honest face... or something. I usually start the process by introducing myself as that pesky lady with a pacemaker who can't go through their detector, back again. Maybe they have a sense of humor. Or maybe they recognize me by now. Or think my age makes me harmless. On the last, they're pretty well on point. I save my ammo for writing. So far that's still legal.

Over at the Auditor's window, I noted the that clerk assisting me was eying my "I VOTED" sticker, and just said I was here for my other civic duty, paying my property taxes. Somehow the sheet for my second half got misplaced, but a name and address was all that was needed, plus my phone number. I could do it online, but that requires a credit card, and they add 3% for that. These days this is about the only thing I use checks for. I say "about" but I can't come up with another use at the moment. I got those checks when we first moved back to MN and two are now used from this pad.  I was still using the old pad, same bank account but two addresses ago, and only for this.

Anyway, while drying out and writing this, I looked at our rain gauge. So far, while the weather site still insists we're getting .01 inches an hour, the gauge is sitting up just at the one inch mark. 

We'll take it.

A Spooky Wellness Visit

 We were sound asleep, around 5AM this morning. Knock! Knock! Knock!

Huh? 

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Wha...?

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!!!!

Steve from his room: "Can you go get that?"

I groggily pulled myself up from bed to walk over to the front door. A new set of knocks was starting so I yelled as loudly as I could with my morning dry mouth, "COMING!"

The knocking stopped. As I came around the corner to the living room I could see light outside moving around the vertical window, covered by a sheer curtain for privacy. As I unlocked the front door and opened it, I was greeted by a local policeman.

"Is Steve here?" 

Since I'd heard him call for me to open the door, I knew he was, and alive and well. It just takes him a lot longer to get himself up and and dressed enough to answer a door. I'm the one who wears old soft comfy clothes to bed. I agreed that he was here and invited the cop inside.

He informed me that they had gotten a call from his ex wife that his blood sugar was high.

Say what?

As I led him to Steve's room, a thousand  questions blew through my mind wondering what was going on. First, she lives six towns away, rarely communicates with either of us except at large family gatherings where everything is always civil. But how would she know anything about his blood sugar? Especially when I didn't? And Steve apparently didn't? The only things he has which could alert anybody to a medical problem, if one were happening, would be his cell phone, normally out in the living room so as not to disturb his sleep, or a life-alert type necklace which when bumped starts calling their network to ascertain what kind of problem needs a response.  So far it has given several calls out to their own system while he is trying frantically to negate the call after he simply moved abruptly, so we both are familiar with that and how it works. His wife is NEVER on the call list, though his daughter is. He usually doesn't wear it to bed, since that's its recharging time. And it doesn't have a clue what his blood sugar is any more than I have a clue what mine is without a little needle jab and a reading from a corresponding meter. Nothing in this house sets off an alert regarding blood sugar! Not for him, not for me. Neither of us has heard of such a gizmo. We're both at the morning monitoring stage and mindful.

Was something medically wrong with his ex? This was still "wee hours" for us. But her medical status is precarious, after a couple of strokes. She requires a wheelchair most of the time, though can manage a few steps on her own. He daughter lives in her own apartment in the same building and keeps track of her mother, assisting in a number of ways throughout the day, every day. She can obviously get to her phone by herself, and unlike us, keeps it nearby at night. (We prefer sleep, and the other one is always at hand unless in the hospital.)  But why on earth would she think he was having a medical emergency regarding his blood sugar? Was it a very vivid nightmare? Was she in trouble making her delusional?

By the time Steve was up and dressed, the cop was joined by an ambulance crew. Steve, perfectly mobile, offered to head down to the family room where he keeps his medications and various accessories. First he took his own blood sugar reading. 106! Best we've both seen from him in practically forever! He also showed them his phone to establish he'd never made an outgoing call to her in the night. (In fact a later check showed he hadn't since early September. ) I even checked my phone and verified she had made a call to my phone, also kept way separate from me while I sleep, and she had.

All agreed he hadn't prank called his ex, and nobody suspected she'd prank called 911 about him. The ambulance crew, seeing his blood sugar level, left once they were reassured of being unneeded, after a brief discussion about getting a lock box on the door with a key the police department or fire department would have the code to. 

How the call came about will be getting looked into, both on their end and ours. Steve has contacted his ex with reassurance that he is fine, and she insists her phone shows an incoming call from him, while his has no record of an outgoing call, which he showed the cop and ambulance crew. We both expressed our appreciation for their prompt response, had there been any kind of emergency, and our ongoing appreciation for their assistance for previous falls. In a while he will be calling their daughter to have her check in on her mom and check her mom's phone to see what she can find out.

Big Brouhaha!

 I just have to wonder why, some days. In this case, why does the endorsement, or withdrawal of such, make such an impact with the powers that be, hoping that by publicizing it, they can make such a difference in how people vote.

In this case, the loser of a Michigan congressional  primary battle, (former Democrat) Haley Stevens comes out against the person who beat her, Dr. Abdul Al Sayed. First she endorsed him. Now she doesn't. Everybody is blowing up over it, at least verbally, according to news reports. No telling yet if anybody is listening aside from those needing to find some news to report. Tuesday night should show the results. Meanwhile.....

My first  question is, since she lost the primary, who cares about her opinion and/or endorsement, especially when that endorsement was first given to the one who beat her in her own party, but now just bestowed to the political opponent in the opposite party who's opposing him, plus presumably everything she stood for?

Next, why so close to the election when it's too late for so many early voters to be influenced? Is she looking for some kind of favors from the former opposition party if the contest swings their way? Why would they trust her in any position of worth she might be looking for? I sure wouldn't!

She's framing opposing her former opposition who beat her in the primary as a way to support "the Jews".  I call "bullshit" on that reasoning. It's no more than sour grapes and fear mongering.  Dr. Abdul Al Sayed  (OMG! With that name he must be the Boogeyman!) is opposing the politics of Israel. You know what? I do too! I blame Netanyahu, fighting in a way designed to kill a nation over the reprehensible actions of a political group, the admittedly criminal act of kidnapping a large group of people.  But Netanyahu's bombing civilians indiscriminately, starving children and non combatants, leveling hospitals full of sick and injured as well as their medical staffs, and promising to let food aid in while closing the borders to just such aid.... I could go on. And on. Most societies call those war crimes. Few angels on either side, but no excuse for the brutality working to eliminate a people. The world has chosen to have rules for conducting war. That groups violate those rules does not justify the extremes of either side! Locate and punish the perpetrators, not their world. Difficulty is not an excuse for wiping out a people or nation, or trying to.

I'm not a Jew. Nor a Christian. Nor Muslin. Nor Hindu, Buddhist,  nor a whole list of other widely known and generally respected religions. As I've said many times before, I'm agnostic, waiting to see what/whether anything comes along after death, holding my actions now in this life to have much more meaning than words on a page or chants/songs/prayers from any belief system.  Most of those beliefs from every source tell us to be kind to one another and honest in our doings. People, being people, often disregard those teachings rather than being guided by them, and in those cases I don't hold the beliefs to be wrong, just the people to be weak ...to be kind. Stronger words often are applied, of course.

The Jews I have known are neither better or worse than, say Christians. Nor are the Muslims. They deserve all the good things that come their way as much as anybody else. But to hate Jews because of Netanyahu makes exactly as much sense as hating all Americans because of Trump, or Russians because of Putin, or North Koreans because of Kim Jung Un. In a word: none! Refusal to comply with wrong orders comes with penalties, but still is possible. It shows who you are, not what your religion or nationality is.

Haley, you lost! Sit down, shut up, and go away gracefully! Or just sit down and shut up! Find a way to be actually useful, not a problem. This isn't it.

Will This Election Season PLEASE END?

 First, yes we plan to vote, on the day of, in our small town where crowds just don't exist in mid-morning. Most times we head in we are outnumbered by poll workers. From parking to driving away it takes all of ten minutes. OK, maybe more if nobody sees that Steve needs a hand getting out of their very low chairs set out for "help" for those mildly disabled, the ones who don't need to come from their vehicle in their own mobility transportation. He can walk in, but for the decisions and marking the ballot he needs a break, sitting. Then he needs a helper. Sometimes I need to request one for him. The place is often so slow the poll workers are off chatting about weather, or crops, or some sports game, or how sad they are this fishing season is over. Good thing those conversations are easily interrupted.

Our decisions were made months ago, for all candidates with a party affiliation. Nothing airing on TV is going to change our minds. We stay informed all year, every year. So this 11th hour blitz of poison during every single commercial break is only making us angry. Lies only make us dig in  deeper.

This is the time of year we love the fact that we can prerecord everything we view on network TV channels.  We can pause, mute, skip, or whatever we need to do to eliminate the poison ruining our peace. We're very well practiced from normal commercials, avoiding them all on a regular basis. If we can't manage to get to the controls in time, we are deluged with even more reasons to stick with our original choices, even if just out of pique!

Apparently candidates and parties have way more money in hand than they know what to do with, so now they're finding new ways to try to get to us. First emails started to carry the crap. I turn on my laptop after several hours away or in the morning to see if any are interesting before I go elsewhere, perhaps what is important that I "might have missed"  - however rare- because most of the really important messages don't come with time pressure. (Seems counter intuitive, doesn't it?) Important ones will be something like a new set of test results from the doc are now posted on their secure site for me to look at. If any were truly urgent there'd be a phone call. Or there might be a reminder that a bill will be $X dollars this month (please pay by _____).  Or there might be some news from friends or family. Those are important.  Now I'm deluged by political ads, not just one or two a day from each Candidate Y, but repeated ones from many of them. Recently they just added the information - as if I might have forgotten - that records show I am a registered voter who votes regularly, and an election is imminent.

Tell me: How many people in this country have missed the fact that a major election happens Tuesday?Are any of them over three? Or under 110?

How many campaign managers believe that deluging me with whatever about their candidate so frequently that I have to spend an unreasonable amount of time clearing my email just to make it usable again is going to persuade in in a positive direction?

Who really thinks I need 8 reminders every day that there's an election coming up? Even if they aren't pushing any candidate, just the fact of me needing to show up? Is there any unlucky human in this country who is just awakening out of a coma to find out an election is happening just around the corner? More, one who can jump up and run over to plaster their ballot with well thought-out decisions, or in lieu of those, will succumb to the influence of this blast of commercials because this is apparently their target audience?

This last week, and presumably into some ugly infinity, the way it's going, I've been getting texts on my non-smart flip phone. It tends to get clogged up with a lot of crap, and stops performing as a phone any more, the only reason I really use it. I can't even answer it when I'm driving these days, which is bad enough when I can't pull over safely to check importance.  But if somebody sends a waited-for voicemail, I can't tell until I wade through all the crap, and then listen to an actual voice. If it was important, we're both SOL.

Somebody, please wake me up gently Wednesday morning with the reassurance that this whole nightmare is finally over. And by that I'm truly hoping the news is good regarding who won, as well as that all the deciding is now done for two more years!!!!!