Coffee heat rising

Month: March 2011

Busted, Disgusted, and Cain’t Be Trusted

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Lenten thanks, Day 8

Thank God for Social Security! Without it, I’d be spending my old age in real poverty.

Busted because I spent over $200 yesterday, just sitting here in the house. Disgusted because after KJG left, I came down with a roaring sore throat. And cain’t be trusted to show up at the weekly trade group breakfast meeting because of the roaring sore throat.

{sigh} I hope KJG doesn’t catch this bug. At least I’m not exposing my friends in Scottsdale to it. And thank goodness it’s spring break and I don’t have to entertain 50 freshmen today. Ugh!

Some spring break, eh? It starts out with three solid days wasted doing battle with the unholy Blackboard and ends with a nasty cold.

After I paid Gerardo twice as much as his usual fee for the extra work he and his sidekicks performed by way of cleaning up after the recent hard freeze, he lost the check. His pocket had a hole in it. Actually, all his pockets have holes in them, as we discovered when he resurfaced here asking for another one. So I had to stop payment on the first check. That will cost me fifteen bucks, so, bitch that I am, I wrote him a new check for $15 less than the first one. Maybe that was ungracious. But…I really shouldn’t have paid him double his usual amount to begin with, and to add a hefty bank fee on top of that when I’m trapped in my house because I can’t afford to buy gasoline until next Monday was a bit beyond the pale.*

*Update: This turned into a pricier adventure than I imagined at the time I was writing. The credit union has upped its stop-payment fee from $15 to $32!

Then the locksmith charged $111 to install a new lock and make keys for it. That also was a bit beyond the pale for a job a handyman could’ve done.

Anyway, now there’s a lock on there that can’t be opened by someone who decides to break the windowpane.

The kitchen doors on these houses are the most vulnerable entryways, through which most of the break-ins happen. By and large the residents secure the sliding doors; although those are notoriously flimsy, a few simple tricks will make them harder to break through than most burglars like. But if you have an ordinary lock on the back door, which is the only egress in the event of a fire on the stove, then the burglar can just punch a hole in the window, stick his hand through it, unlock the door, and make himself to home. Because of the safety issue—trapped by a fire, a person could panic and not find a hidden key to a deadbolt—people tend to install single-cylinder deadbolts on those back doors.

During my cleaning frenzy the day before yesterday, I discovered a greasy forehead print on one of the backdoor windowpanes. It wasn’t that long ago that I cleaned those windows, so this must have happened fairly recently. Evidently the perp—or some other wannabe perp—cased the joint.

Don’t think this happened on the night of the event, because the motion-sensitive exterior lights were not on when I walked out to investigate. They stay on for about five or ten minutes, so, unless the guy waited until after they clicked off to try his luck on the side door, it doesn’t seem likely he peered into the kitchen at that time. Besides, what could he have seen at 4:00 in the morning by the light of the microwave clock? It’s very dark out there.

Charming.

As soon as I regain consciousness this morning, I’ll have to burn my last gallon of gasoline on a trip up to Home Depot, there to buy some prison bars for the back door. I just hate those ugly things—dammit! it’s the bad guy who belongs behind bars, not me!—but without a big, mean dog and now lacking the wits and reflexes of a younger woman, I just don’t feel safe anymore.

Well, I see one client sent a new chunk of technomaterial to edit yesterday, and the other called while KJG was here asking if I’d do a rush job, which she dropped in the mail yesterday. Sooo…. I’d better get to work. Sore throat or no, it’s gonna be a busy day!

Image: Human rhinovirus 16-coat protein at high resolution. A. T. Hadfield and M. G. Rossmann. Posted at the Protein Databank, an “archive of macromolecular structural data that is freely and publicly available to the global community.”

Like a chicken with its head cut off…

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Lenten Thanks, Day 7

Thank God for Gerardo!

Racing around frantically since six o’clock this morning. My friend KJG will surface here around 11:00, for what I hope will be a relaxing day of hanging out. Whenever she gets here, things should slow down.

Meanwhile…

Gerardo the Lawn Dude Supreme left word on m[get up! fly to the kitchen, close the back door to block dust and fumes from Gerardo’s flunky’s blower]y voicemail while I was out last night, saying he wanted to come around to clean up the unholy disaster area that is my yard…like, this morning. Not knowing when he’s likely to show up or if, shortly after dawn blower the leaves off the patio and deck, roll up and stow the hoses. Scrub the dirt off the patio table.

Haul in the feather comforter I left up overnight on the clothesline; put it into the crippled dryer to bang around on air fluff. Fold and put away the cotton blanket left out to dry. Pull down the makeshift clotheslines and stow them. Try to clean the kitchen and fix breakfast and feed the dog at once.

Reach Gerardo on the phone around 7:00. Can you get in here and out before KJG shows up? We want to have a nice lunch outside. No problem!

Gerardo appears before 8, two flunkies in tow. Locksmith due between 8 and 10 to install a double-cylinder deadbolt on the back door.

Race to pull in the bathroom and dog rugs I left on the lines and draped over the hammock last night. Three of them are still wet. Put the two dry ones in the fluffer (we can no longer call it a “dryer”) to plump them up. Figure out where the hell to put the soggy shag rugs out of the men’s way. Continue trying to clean the kitchen and jump in and out of the shower and clean the shower and scrub the dirty pan left to soak overnight in the utility sink and dodge the dog’s ball game and scour the tired stained kitchen sink and polish the brightwork and talk Gerardo into pulling the dead fronds off the moribund 30-foot-high queen palm and persuade him to dig up the endlessly annoying frozen cape honeysuckle by the pool equipment so I can replace them with some frost-resistant Lady Banks roses and keep an eye out for the locksmith and pay Gerardo an extra $75 for the bone-crushing extra work he did and [get up! answer the door for the locksmith] finish writing Gerardo a check and wave goodbye to him. Show the locksmith what needs to be done [stop! answer the phone, accept a new assignment from the client], ask about reinforcing locks on sliding doors, discuss (stop! answer the phone, discuss plan with KJG)] recommendations for security doors and locks.

Sit down and start blogging again (drop that! With Gerardo out, drag wet rugs back out to hammock to dry in sun] and [on the way back in put away the irrigation gear Gerardo needed to fix the line his flunky cut] and zap [rattle the canful of rocks at Cassie to interrupt her barking frenzy at the locksmith] the dregs of this morning’s coffee in the microwave. Stagger back to the computer and…

…and I forget what I was going to write about this morning.

Two Serendipitous Money Developments

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Lenten Thanks, Day 7:

I thank God and my lucky stars for my insurance coverage through The Hartford’s reasonably priced AARP program, which has covered almost all the damage from last fall’s hailstorm. The dollar amount added up to far more than I could have paid to repair the air conditioning, the roof, and the eaves.

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Two other small financial mercies have developed in the past couple of days.

Wellcare, the carrier for my Medicare Part D insurance (that’s the part that covers your prescription drugs, in a half-baked way), decided to inflict coupon books on its customers instead of sending monthly statements. The reason for this expensive extra hassle is unclear; the stated excuse is that it’s somehow cheaper to send one weighty box of shrink-wrapped books than twelve single pieces of paper.

I wasn’t looking forward to this development, because it looked like just another way to try to force people who dislike having to waste money on postage and envelopes to grant the insurance company access to their bank accounts. Wellcare doesn’t like it when you go in from your end to send payments through your bank’s bill-pay system; they want to get your bank account number so they can engross payment from their end at their convenience. Which ain’t a-gonna happen. Several times over the past year I’ve had to hassle with some clueless CSR when the company has accused me of delinquency after my payment had cleared the credit union a month in advance of the due date.

So when this new wad of paper landed in the mailbox, I quietly cursed again. Ripped open the envelope. Dug out a pair of scissors to hack off the plastic that they’d wrapped this stuff in. Read yet another set of complicated instructions for how to fill out yet another set of forms…

And lo! What should I come across but an opportunity to cover the entire year’s premiums in one payment!

Hallelujah! When I signed up, they explicitly refused to accept a full year’s premium with a single payment. Management must have  had a change of heart. Either that or the government is forcing them to offer a full year’s payment option.

They don’t offer any discount when you pay them upfront, the way a normal insurer does, which is annoying. But at least one monthly nuisance is obviated.

Unlike Medicare B and Medigap insurance costs, Part D premiums are not large—only about $23 a month. And they’re only letting people pay through December, so that’s just $230 or so. The cost is low enough that I could easily advance it from the tax & insurance self-escrow savings. When my tax refund arrives in another month or so, I’ll reimburse that account and maybe even set aside enough for next year.

So! That frees up $23 a month from the nondiscretionary budget! Hey! A shirt or a pair of jeans a month from Costco. 🙂

And then yesterday, another small miracle: When I go into my online bank accounts to reconcile this month’s gaggle of transactions, what should I discover but a new tab: “e-Deposit.”

Say what? The credit union’s management has personfully resisted letting customers deposit checks electronically since the idea was a glimmer in some technofinancier’s eye. So what’s this?

Check it out and find yea, verily: they’ve instituted a system that lets you scan checks to disk and deposit them online.

Hot dang!

Naturally, the whiz-bangiest part of the feature, which allows you to use their system to scan and upload in one swell foop, doesn’t work with the Mac, nor does it work with wireless scanner/printers—not even if the printer is plugged into your terminal. However, they have a work-around: simply scan and store as JPEGs and then upload those.

I haven’t tried this yet. We’ll see if it works, as soon as some money arrives in the mail.

Most of my clients insist on sending checks. Google’s automatic deposit function doesn’t work, forcing me to have Adsense send payment as paper checks, too. This is a huge nuisance, because the credit union has few branches. Years ago, they closed the one that was relatively close to my house, so the nearest place to deposit checks is on the the Great Desert University’s west campus, a far piece off my beaten track. To deposit checks, I have to waste an enormous amount of time and gasoline.

Mailing checks to the credit union is out of the question. The last time I mailed a fistful of checks, the credit union lost over a thousand bucks! They finally found the checks, six weeks later, just as I was calling my clients to tell them to cancel payment. Of course, since Google employs no human beings, it was impossible to reach them, so I figured I would just have to write off that one as a loss. Thus the only way to get paper checks deposited safely is to physically carry them to the branch, walk inside, and watch the teller to be sure she manages to get it deposited in the right account (some of them have some real difficulty figuring out corporate accounts). It’s a time-consuming and, at $3.50 a gallon, increasingly expensive hassle.

So, I hope this system works. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it does—the credit union’s software dislikes Firefox and loathes Apple, and so chances are it will choke on the first JPEGs I send over there. But it’s a nice thought.

Japan: How to Help

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Lenten Thanks, Day 6

Thank you, God, for my safe, pretty little house and for all my quiet, courteous, and civil neighbors.

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Now we can see what happens to our safe little homes when the gods shrug. Viewing the stills and videos from Japan leaves one stunned at the enormity of the disaster befalling these extraordinary people.

What can we as individuals do to help, if anything? Twitter is awash in appeals to send money hither and yon. Be careful of these: some are scams.

If you want to make a donation, stick to recognized charities, such as the Red Cross. But bear in mind that at this point it’s unclear to what extent donations to entities outside Japan are reaching the country; you can donate directly (in yen only) to the Japanese Red Cross through Google Crisis Response. Before hurrying to send money, go to Charity Navigator for guidelines on wise giving and for ratings of charities engaged in the Japan relief effort.

Among the many creditable organizations that are acting to help, you might consider the ones listed below. However, call and confirm that donations are really being directed to crisis relief in-country.

Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders)
The Adventist Development and Relief Agency
Catholic Relief Services
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Convoy of Hope
International Medical Corps
Oxfam USA
Real Medicine Foundation
Save the Children
Shelterbox
World Vision

I Wanna Go Swimming!

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Lenten Thanks, Day 5

Thank  you, God, for the beautiful days and nights of an Arizona springtime.

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The water in the pool is almost warm enough for a brave soul to take the plunge.

When I was 12, my mother used to take me to a “Rod and Gun Club” operated by my father’s employer, Standard Oil. It was somewhere in the East Bay, how far on the ’tother side of the Golden Gate Bridge I do not recall. What I do recall is that they had a pool whose waters were, on the warmest day of a Bay Area summer, about the temperature of the water in my backyard today.

That I would blithely dive into that refrigerator-chilly water, I’m sure, helped to convince my mother that her daughter was none too bright.

It was cold. The trick was never to just put your toe in. The trick was to throw yourself in off the side, in one bold, brave splash, a dive that could not be taken back. About two seconds later, the water felt like a cool spring breeze against your skin. It was so fun you just lost track of whether it was cold or not, and you felt sorry for your poor, fat, benighted mother that she didn’t have the nerve to follow you into the drink.

Now the question that crosses my mind, as I stand on the step with the waterline lapping up against a belly about three times the circumference of that twelve-year-old waist, is this: “If I dive into this pool, will it freeze my titties off?”

The answer: “Probably so.”

God, but wisdom takes all the joy out of life.

Flying Dog Saturday

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Lenten Thanks, Day  4

I thank God for Cassie the Corgi, who came into my life as if guided by a Divine Paw. Who would imagine ever finding such a charmer at the dog pound?

Utterly exhausted by three days and nights of fighting with the unholy Blackboard, I repaired to M’hijito’s house with Cassie the Corgi in tow, looking for company and someone else to do the driving. From there we went to our favorite overpriced gourmet grocery store, where Cassie and I claimed a table in front while M’hijito went in to get himself a sandwich and me a vast plastic cup filled with iced green tea.

Cassie likes to socialize. Oh, how this dog likes to socialize! And of course because she’s so hopelessly cute, every passer-by in town has to stop and coo over her. While we were waiting for M’hijito to emerge from the expensive depths, we had to love up every kid, every old lady, and every DINK who wandered past. And, amazingly, they had to love her back.

Moving on to Baker‘s, our favorite nursery, we wandered from one end to the other of several acres and then we began to tire. So, the humans put Cassie inside a shopping cart and rolled her around, which she didn’t seem to mind.

So we’re standing in a long line to check out, our attention wandering, when Cassie gets tired of sharing her space with a bunch of tomato plants. All of a sudden she’s in the air and flying out of the cart!

Incredibly, she landed on her feet and did not get hurt. I couldn’t believe she was OK! You’re not even supposed to let these dogs jump off the sofa. What with their short legs and their long backs, they’re prone to injuring the spine and neck if they jump or fall any distance.

What possessed her to take flight is unclear. Neither of us was paying much attention. I think a lady in the line was doting on her, and she felt the need to pursue a new admirer. M’hijito thinks she just wanted out of the cart.

So there’s another small mercy to be thankful for.

A much larger mercy: my client who lives in Japan checked in to say she and her family are OK.

She works for a university in the vastness that is Tokyo, at which of its three campuses I’m not sure. But I assume it’s the one closest to the ocean, since that’s the one that teaches the social sciences. The images coming out of Japan are terrifying. It was a great relief to learn she, her husband, and their child have come through it all safe.

We can be thankful for our blogging friends, too. Have you been following Donna Freedman as she blogs her way around the U.K.? She’s posted one interesting story after another after another. Better keep an eye on Surviving and Thriving as long as this is going on.

Frugal Scholar also has generated a series of interesting articles: a rumination on strategic defaults, a discussion of flex spending accounts, and an awesomely delicious-sounding recipe for colcannon.

Money Beagle holds forth on a particularly outrageous facet of our amazing health care system. Roger that, friend!

At Out of Debt Again, Mrs. Accountability learns the official term for a type of budgeting she and I both indulge in.

Among her usual daily bouquet of frugal leads, Bargain Babe includes a link to an interesting article on what’s driving up your energy costs.

Money Crush proprietor Jackie has launched a new blog! Check it out here.

At the Digerati Life, guest blogger Kosmo holds forth about the importance of having a properly executed will, using the story of the battle over author Stieg Larsson’s estate as a cautionary tale.

Jim at Bargaineering asks a question I’ll bet no one has ever asked you before!

Over at the Ultimate Money Blog, Mrs. Money describes a discussion with Mr. M over low-rent toilet paper.

101 Centavos relates some interesting observations that show the day-to-day effects of the economic slowdown on the world around us.

My Journey to Millions features two particularly interesting articles this week: guest blogger Les Roberts reflects the extent to which the Credit CARD Act has had short- or long-term benefits for consumers, and Evan addresses the question of whether it’s a good thing to stipulate how inherited funds can be spent.

Welp, speaking of Cassie the Corgi, it’s time to get up and feed her and me. Then it’s back to the Blackboard Wars. Later!