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Quinoa: Pretty good!

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During the last Costco expedition, I noticed they were offering organic quinoa, a grain I’ve long been curious about. The package suggested preparing it like tabbouleh, something I happen to favor.

First time I fixed it, though, it was breakfast time and things were a bit too rushed to fiddle with slicing garlic and onions and with harvesting herbs and making vinaigrette. One of my eccentricities is that I don’t like milk, and so I don’t at all care for hot (or cold) cereals splashed with the stuff. Oatmeal’s OK, if it’s prepared like pasta as a savory dish, instead of gooped up with milk and sugar.

So… I decided to try something along those lines with the quinoa.

It’s easy to cook, much like regular oatmeal or converted rice: just dump a cup of it into two cups of boiling water, turn down the heat, and let it simmer 20 minutes or so, till the water is absorbed. The result is a nice, fluffy product, light and pretty, with an interesting texture.

I had some sausage that I’d cooked and frozen. While the quinoa was steeping, I reheated that and sliced it into bite-sized pieces. Cut up a ripe tomato. sliced a green onion, chopped some parsley.

When the cereal was finished cooking, I served it up in a bowl with a big dollop of butter on it, and then topped it with all of the above, with a sprinkle of Parmesan. It turned out very tasty! And it really filled me up: I didn’t get the slightest bit hungry until past lunchtime.

Saved! Benefits cover without bankrupting

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Finally—finally, finally, finally—the state sent out a booklet showing the medical benefits offered during this fall’s annual enrollment period. We’re a week in to the normal open enrollment period and have had no information. GDU was supposed to have posted this stuff today, but at last look had not. The state, however, has known the facts long enough to print out and mail a 69-page document to every employee.

We still have an EPO, through the very iffy Cigna but at least an EPO, and my doc at the Mayo accepts it. Thank God! And according to the CSR I just spoke to, it will cover care at any emergency room, including the pricey Mayo. Premium is only $39 a month.

The total monthly premium is $523.  According to this document, those of us who are to be canned between now and December 31 will be entitled to the COBRA discount and so will have to pay only 35 percent of the usual outrageous COBRA premium. For the EPO, then, my cost will be $183 a month—significantly less than I’ve budgeted for Medicare Part B + Medicare Part D + Medigap.

Hallelujah! Now…if I can just manage to not get sick between now and my 65th birthday, I’ll be golden.

Landscaping job wraps up

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Richard’s men are almost done with the big landscaping job at the downtown house. We’d hired his company, Dick’s Landscaping, to xeriscape both the front and back yards, huge plots of land compared to modern tract lots.

They’ve ripped out a decrepit walkway, built a front courtyard and new brick walkway, installed an automatic watering system (front and back), laid three brick patios, planted eight trees and a bunch of ornamental grasses and shrubs, laid weed fabric over the bermudagrass-infested ground, and spread 75 tons of quarter-minus crushed granite. And the place is looking a lot better!

Here’s a “before” view of the backyard:

For a good view, click on the images

And an after:

We’re looking at a lemon tree, a lime tree, a Texas ebony, deer grass, a Mexican bird of paradise. Both the Lisbon lemon and the Mexican lime will get to be good-sized trees. Texas ebony is slow-growing, but over time it develops into a very handsome xeric tree. Not much we can do about the overhead wires, which actually are over the alley, other than consider them quaint characteristics of a character-filled antique bungalow.

Work in progress in front:

Men working, in front

And here’s the result:

The little tree is a multi-trunked desert willow, which grows to a medium height and bears lovely deep purple flowers for  many months during the late winter and spring. In a year or two, it should shade the front window and, with the mature carob tree just to its west, cool and shade the new courtyard.

More to come: We just had Richard’s crew do the heavy lifting for us. After the worst of the heat passes, M’hijito will plant more ornamentals and set various potted plants around the yard. And in back, we’ll lay flagstone stepping stones to build a pathway from the covered patio to the new sitting area in back.

The 1,450 bricks that came from the estate sale sufficed to build most of the three patios, and we still have a few left. Amazing buy!

Our project inspired the down-at-the-heels neighbor across the street to do a little keeping-up-with-the-jonesing: he snagged our workmen and hired them to lay a wide driveway in his front yard. Maybe some of the rolling stock will get moved off the lawn!

Toothless credit card consumer protection laws

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Well, if there ever was any question about who holds sway in the halls of Congress, the outcome of the effort to regulate the credit-card industry to provide a little consumer protection. Who owns Congress? Big industries with deep enough pockets to hire persistent, heavy-hitting lobbyists, that’s who.

Have you received your notice from American Express yet? Mine came a couple days ago: a flatly worded announcement that late fees and interest rates are going up.

Not that I care: I don’t carry a balance on any credit card, and though I charge almost every purchase as a matter of convenience, I make it a point to pay well in advance of the due date.

Betcha this isn’t the last we’ll hear from AMEX on the subject. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that American Express and other major card issuers are canceling hundreds of cardholders’ accounts without explanation and without notice. In many cases, the canceled accounts are deemed inactive because the cardholders haven’t used them in some months. But at least a few accounts, including one reported in that W. St. J. article, belong to people who use their cards, never miss a payment, and pay off balances monthly.

Over at Freep, commentator Brian Dickerson calls the new legislation “regulation a regulated industry can love.” He points out that Congress rejected the only provision that would have given consumers any meaningful protection—a cap on the already usurious interest rates card issuers can charge. Says Dickerson:

In the end, card issuers preserved both their right to charge whatever the market will bear and their right to abruptly cancel a cardholder’s credit without advance notice.

Uh huh. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Politics is money, money politics.

Yep, I sure did say it before!

Economy Is All about Politics
Personal Finance IS Politics
Economy Is Politics: Arizona’s Politico-Economic Disaster

Bosch dishwasher recall

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Several days late and who knows how many dollars short, Bosch is blitzing the purchasers in its records with recorded telephone calls to let them know their fancy dishwashers may set fire to the house. An overheating part has caused something upwards of 50 incidents, of which 30 (or more) have caused property damage. Well…those figures are as of last January, when the recall went out.

Because I let my subscription to Consumer Reports lapse, I didn’t hear about this until the company’s phone robot occupied some space on my voicemail.

Naturally, not only do I have one of those in my house, M’hijito and I bought one for the downtown house. Both of machines seem to have been recalled.

Yesterday I called the toll-free number and was told to quit using the machine (yeah. right!), to wait until they get around to sending the part, and then call Sears and wait until they get around to sending someone to repair the thing. Of course, I didn’t have the model and serial numbers for M’hijito’s dishwasher, so that means I’m now sitting interminably on the Bosch’s hold button. At least they pump classical music into your ear, instead of the usual drech.

What’s annoying about this is not that they installed a defective part in God only knows how many units but that they waited until mid-August to blanket the country with phone calls. It means both my son and I (among who knows how many other hapless consumers) have been using a hazardous appliance for at least eight months. Don’t know about you, but I often turn on the dishwasher and then leave the house, or turn it on right before I go to bed. To frost that cookie, this could not be a worse time to have to deal with Sears’s often rude and usually difficult service department! Classes start the week after next; I’ve got to go to six meetings next week, plus of course I’m supposed to show up at work, of all the ridiculous things!

So I’m less than perfectly thrilled at the prospect of waiting around from 8:00 to noon or 1:00 to 5:00 for some Sears guy to show up, knowing he probably won’t show up in that window.

♦ ♦ ♦

Just got through on the phone to one Chris, a CSR of considerable charm. Mercifully, the second dishwasher is not on the recall list. Good: only one round of the Workman Waltz, not two.

Well, I’m glad to know about the hazard and glad to have them fix it for free. But I sure do wish they’d clued me when it came up…eight months ago! If you have a Bosch and haven’t heard about this, better check out the recall notice. The phone number to call, if you think your model might be among the recalled, is 1-800-856-9226.