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!!!!!

NOT Shopping On eBay

I wanted to, honest. I had a very particular item in mind I wanted to replace, and knowing it was older, thought eBay might stand a chance of having it. I've been shopping there for decades, as long as I had a computer capable of doing so and a card accepted by PayPal.

By now I'm convinced if I had searched that item, I'd start to see ads blocking all  kinds of non-commercial sites  by covering patches of the data or information I wanted to look at. It just happened to me a couple days ago with ads on a different item (SHAME ON YOU, ETSY!) on my usual local weather site, the one which has local radar, even if it gets it wrong on the boundaries of where rain is actually falling. These days I have to do a really quick view of high and low temperatures for today and tomorrow , or they'll be covered with ads. Every time I pull it up! It normally offers ten day information on a chart, and hourly information for the current day on a different chart. I can't view them anymore, or maybe get just  one set of numbers before they're covered.

I was a bit reluctant to check on eBay, but figured what I wanted to replace might just narrowly be there if it could be found anywhere. It might be worth the risk of being flooded by unstoppable ads.  But now  this new frustration from eBay prevented any search at all. I couldn't even get on the site.

First it asked me to click in a small box to "prove" I was human. I did. It asked again. I did again. Usually one was enough, but now two? OK, that should do it. Right?

Nope!

Next I got the box of squares with fuzzy photos in them asking me to click in each one that fits in a category. I'm used to "all the bicycles" or "all the buses". 

This time the pictures were fuzzy. One had a spray bottle, no kind of label so I'd know what it had inside, and asked me to click on all the squares I'd use the bottle on. First, I don't have nor use spray bottles. So many of the squares were too fuzzy to properly identify -was that a flower a vase or pot in front of a pretty setting? Or a picture of one? Why would I spray either one? Neither with a cleaner, possibly yes if it held water but absolutely not if it were a picture. There were also possible buildings or tools or toys like Legos. My guess was they were hard plastic toys and I might spray them if I were one of those germaphobes who went around sanitizing my kids total world. Whatever I tried, it didn't work and I got too disgusted with the stupidity of the game to bother trying to use the website. 

Sorry eBay. If you can't figure out how to separate actual paying customers from cons or unbridled AI, giving the humans a reasonable chance with clear pictures, you really don't need my business. Your sellers lose out. Your potential buyers - like me - go elsewhere or decide whatever they're shopping for just isn't that important.

Trump Sent Me A Letter !!!!

OK, that's what the typing said. It came in the mail yesterday when I was busy, and had a totally different return address on the envelope. Nothing yet to draw my attention, but I don't throw ALL of those out without looking at them. At least when I do they go into the recycle bin.

The first mailing from my prescription company, from last week, indicated some changes in next year's medical insurance plans. Part D in short. Today's other  piece of mail was also from my prescription insurance company. I opened that first, they had just informed me that their formulary for which drugs are categorized how in terms of my out of pocket costs were going to be for each regular medication I'm on now. Two of them were going up. 

What else! Anybody expect their costs to go down?  Really? Care to share what you're smoking?

This piece of mail simply said I would need to find a different company for next year. 

Now that is just annoying enough in its own message, just after saying costs were going to rise. But I'm betting somebody in the corporate offices just might to want to give a thought to the high costs of of a huge mass mailing  just before a follow-up mass mailing says something making the first totally irrelevant? Is the rise in costs supposed to cover that nonsense? Is that your business plan? Especially now that I'm not paying your company a red cent next year?

OK, time to read the other letter, actually from today's mail. First thing I noticed was that it was sent out weeks ago. I guess DOGE did a bang-up job of clearing waste ... uh, useful, experienced people... out of the postal system. Several weeks? Holy Shi..... well, you get the point. The content claimed to be from Trump, giving some indecipherable illogical excuse for why he's sending me $90.  

I'd heard "he" was giving out $90  checks to seniors. First, not checks, but deposits just like Social Security gets paid. But is the $90 significant? Say, another attempt at a bribe for voting for him next month? OK, he's not on the ballot, but acts like he is. Be honest here: his real fear is he'll be impeached by a Democratically leaning congress, and suddenly have to face the consequences of the Epsein Files. And nothing in the letter really explained why now, why that amount, and why he had to stick his name in the first couple sentences.

It couldn't be him. The man is sundowning. He can't express coherent thoughts, aside from who he hates (super long list) and who he loves (Putin). The letter was written by a much more cogent hand. It won't increase my SS payment next year, nor help the drop in it that Congress's COLA is supposed to protect us from. That's Cost Of Living Adjustment, if you didn't have to  know that yet. I suspect he wants to appease us in advance - or his handlers do - when we find out all too soon that Social Security is running out because he's tapping every penny he can grab in his fist for himself and for his disasters of monuments in DC and the government no longer can continue paying us from the funds we paid into all the years of our working lives.

It does manage to throw in his usual lies, like how important we all are to him, when we know he's the only one important to him, unless we offer huge bribes. It did manage to make his illegible pointy "signature" at the bottom. Of course, when we see it, it's several inches wide and pretty tall, about the only thing one can pick out in the scritchy-scratch mess. This one is a quarter that size, both directions.

When I finished reading the page, I carefully set it in the trash. Now, note that the paper was clean and pristine. Around here that goes into recycling. But why pollute the recycling stream with that?

So... My Email system Made Some Changes....

 My fingers are sore. You know, the ones that had to keep hitting the "delete" button a few thousand times.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

They sent me the notice of change by email  in the new format they've decided to use. Luddite that I am in many things, I wish they would have left the option open for continuing with the old system. My fingers  knew what to hit where and why. Now any single stroke has to be researched first. Where are they hiding the symbol for this? Or that? Or yet another thing? Whatever the "spam" symbol is now, I'm not finding it and have to try to recall the longer version of how to accomplish that. Every time.

About four days into it, I'm actually beginning to find their new placements. (See, not totally hopeless.) I found the inbox, the delete button, and most everything else, though SPAM is still a horse on the Kentucky Derby's track in new locations each time I think I've got it. And boy, do I get spam!

Tonight I decided to settle in and tackle my unasked-for new/old email system. First thing was they allowed me the old version of light background with dark characters and symbols. Dark isn't the same color as last time, so I'm not fond of it, or not yet, and it jars whenever I open it. I may decide to go back to the white background. Maybe. Perhaps that option lept out the window once used. 

(Did I mention that one of the first things I did locate was where/how to give them feedback on  the changes? You are  guessing that I took advantage of it, aren't you?)

I got a bunch of SPAM today, the kind I've been told is just a way to test if there is a real somebody to try to fleece at this combination of letters and symbols. Most of it is recognizable as SPAM from a collection of random letters, numbers, upper and lower cases, along with symbols posing as an email address. Other "interesting" emails come in from dead people. I know, since I visited one of them in hospice and attended her funeral. They think I'll believe she's still sending me photos every few days out of her box of ashes. Intriguing view from there, no doubt, but I choose to pass. I'm just not curious enough to wonder what those pictures would look like. Both of my sons supposedly send me photos, but neither of them ever has. Ever.  And somehow there are still fools out there that think I'm in the market for penis enhancers. I have all the penis I need, thank you very much, but it just isn't mine to choose that for. I firmly believe that's for each individual owner of one to decide for by themselves. And no, I'm not going to forward those emails.

I did mention sore fingers a few paragraphs ago. I make it a point to regularly clean out my trash and spam folders. With this new change, somehow every single old spam email and deleted actual email came along with it. I had well over 800 just in the inbox, 4 of which were new, and another half dozen read but saved, all that was showing before their changeover. Over 800??????

WTF???

My "sent box" still claims to have 3400  outgoing messages in it, but again, those are supposed to be long gone and done with. Tonight I had the patience to clean out incoming emails for the second time, going back over three years to where we were collecting bids for ways to get our belongings shipped north for our move, communications with our realtor, and notices about our solar bills. They also had one side of the conversations I held with my former email penpal, up to the time he no longer could reach a keyboard. I knew we communicated regularly but there were over 600 just from him! He was a climate change geek, in the best possible way to mean that, and shared all the latest data and links, plus little tidbits on health or his art, which he was no longer able to do. Seeing it all in one continuous feed, I was overwhelmed by how long it had been going on. As a process, I just noted the sender and if questions, the subject. If my keyboard were noisy, one could have heard taps less than a second apart.

I was also annoyed by how long the email company had been keeping them all. Hey, it's good when Blogspot does that, but not when mail does. I have to wonder if those are actually deleted even now, while my fingers are tingling from the work, or will they pop up again sometime? 

For now, my inbox claims to have 5 messages in it, read and unread combined, and spam claims to be empty. But tomorrow or sometime soon I'm going to warm up my fingers again and delete my Sent box. Yep, all 3400 alleged emails in it! Well, maybe not 5 or so.

After my fingers stop tingling, of course.

If I feel that patient. It will be raining then, after all.....