Coffee heat rising

Anybody Know How Well This Vacuum Works?

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This afternoon I came across a Shark Navigator Never Loses Suction upright vacuum at Costco, where it’s selling for somewhat less than Amazon wants. Customer reviews at Amazon are pretty good.

I really have no business thinking about this thing. Just a couple of months ago I bought a Eureka Boss Smart-Vac Upright HEPA Vacuum Cleaner at Fry’s Electronics. Bad move: whereas the Eureka does not suck (literally!), Fry’s return policy decidedly does. I just hate the Eureka. And I hate taking things back to Fry’s so violently that I’m resigned to keeping the piece of junk, or donating it to Goodwill.

Hate, loathe, and despise it! The Eureka is so heavy I work up a sweat pushing it around the all-tile floors in this house—and that was before I dislocated my shoulder. With the arm out of whack, I couldn’t use it at all. It doesn’t pick up. You have to pass the thing back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and FORTH over small particles of debris before they get lifted from the floor. It has no suction at all around the front and sides, so you have to use the hose and attachment to vacuum along the baseboards. All the baseboards. Every. single. goddamn. baseboard. It’s so wide you can’t get it around the furniture or squeeze it between the toilet and the bathroom cabinetry. And the foot lever is so stiff I have to wear a sturdy pair of clodhoppers to operate it—you can NOT push the foot lever barefooted or in flip-flops. To snap the machine back up into its upright position after vacuuming, I have to roll it up against a wall, brace it firmly, and then shove it into place hard; otherwise I can’t get it to pop it upright to put it away.

Disgusted—and needing to vacuum the floors willy nilly, sore arm or no sore arm—I repaired the broken handle on my good old Panasonic with soft felt fabric and yards of duct tape (the home handyman’s secret weapon!), relegating the new junk to the garage. So now it’s functioning again.

But the Panasonic is really old. Sooner or later it’s going to give up the proverbial ghost. Feeling a little stung after the Eureka débâcle, especially since Consumer Reports puffed the thing, I hesitate to run out and buy another vacuum cleaner. At least not without some real-life reports from people who have actually used it in their homes.

Do you have any experience with the Shark Navigator? If so, do tell…in the comments below, please! 🙂

Summer Budget: Very tight…like a noose around the neck

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In my usual OCD way, I continue to worry about how I’m going to make it through the summer. With no idea when the surprise reimbursement for the online course prep will happen, I’m not relying on that to underwrite the astronomical summer utility bills.

Saguaro

In a low-desert summer, power and water bills take off for Saturn’s orbit. If they weren’t already burdensome enough, both local power companies and the city water department hiked rates, so I’m figuring an extra 10 percent for both electric and water. Southwest gas also raised its rates; add another five or ten bucks there, too.

Meanwhile, in May the breathtaking costs for Medicare kick in. Part B—$110 a month—is deducted by the Feds from your Social Security check, commensurately reducing net income. The $20/month Medicare Part D plan I signed up for magically morphed into a $40 bill. The woman there had some excuse for this, but it was such double-talk I couldn’t follow her pitch, so just gave up. Though I paid upfront for a year’s worth of $90/month Medigap coverage, as a practical matter another $1080 to pay for next year’s bill will have to come from somewhere—make that $1080 and then some, because you know they’ll jack up the premium in 2011. So I’m having to self-escrow that out of cash flow. These two costs plus the $200 monthly savings and the $325/month self-escrow to cover property tax, homeowner’s insurance, and car insurance raise the monthly nonnegotiable expenses from $800 to $1240. That’s if the lawn man doesn’t show up.

Even that is a little short. Budgeted power and water bills are based on past high watermarks. But the fact is, those are way past watermarks. I’ve been figuring $225 for power and $125 for water. Last summer’s highest bills, though, came in August: $257 for electric and $133 for water. Add about 10 percent for the rate increases, and you get estimated August bills of $282 and $146, respectively. The grayed-out items below represent estimated figures for statements that have yet to come in.

Two things are saving me this year: a rainy winter drove cool-season water bills as low as $57, and learning to live in a cold house produced four months of $60 to $70 electric bills, both well under budget. So there’s some cushion in the checking account to cover the summer’s astronomical costs.

However, everybody has their hand in my pocket. Three years ago, when I had a decent income, I pledged $100 a year, for three years, to Andrea’s Closet. They neglected to bill me last year, but now that I’m unemployed and about to be broke, they want their money. I guess I’m going to have to pony it up, since I said I would, but it’s going to make things awfully tight. Charity’s dandy, but not when you need some yourself…

Well OK, I don’t. But it still frosts my cookies. I wish I’d just given them the three hundred bucks then, rather than going along with their pledging strategy.

Anyway, as you can see, I should make this month’s budget with about $5 to spare. That’s if the lawn dude doesn’t show up. And assuming I don’t pay Andrea’s Closet…

But of course, Gerardo the Lawn Dude is going to have to show up, because the damnable palm trees are already sprouting spikes from which to launch their pool-clogging blossoms. Even if I don’t let him do any clean-up, he or one of his compatriots will have to climb into the trees and cut that stuff out, to the tune of about $200. So at least one month this summer—undoubtedly June—is going to end in the red.

According to my ditzy calculations, there should be enough to carry me through the summer, if no major expenses arise and if I can manage to do most of my own lawn and pool work. Big, big if.

If the college actually pays the $2,400 that was bandied about, I figure the net should be around $1,920. That plus the alleged $400 end-of-summer remainder would come to $2,320, a pretty comfortable amount of play.

But it remains to be seen whether that comes to pass.

Saguaro Image: Artist unknown. Public Domain.

This One Bears Watching!

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Did you read the news that a breast cancer vaccine may be on the horizon? Wouldn’t that be something!

Well, we women have been guinea pigs before, so I guess we’ll have to watch this with care. But also with hope!

Next, a vaccine for atherosclerosis…

Are Your Name, Address, Phone Number, Income, and Credit Rating Being Broadcast to the Universe?

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Holy God! Take a look at what Fabulously Broke found! Do not pass go before you click here and enter your own name.

When I went there, I discovered they’ve published my street address—with a map to my house!—telephone number; approximate age; credit rating; wealth level; value of my home; gender; marital status; length of time I’ve resided in my home; socioeconomic status of my neighborhood; type of structure I occupy and and the year it was built; its alleged value; whether it has a fireplace, central heating, central air, or a pool; how many kids I have; my educational level; my hobbies; my occupation; my interests; and my zodiac sign.

To be fair, some of these are left blank. Some are wrong—hilariously, they think my house is worth in excess of a million bucks. I wish!!! Some of the data clearly came from Facebook: I recognize the disinformation I entered there.

However… Spokeo also has another me in its bowels: Some woman by the same name is still living with my former husband at my former address. Interestingly, this woman’s information happens to match my own real-life personal data.

Folks. I divorced before there was such a thing as social media. The Internet barely existed when I ran away to the Alaskan outback. So…wherever these SOBs are aggregating their data from, it’s not all coming from the Internet.

If you go to their contact link and send them an e-mail demanding that they take your personal data down, you’re forced to enter their choice of subject lines. Select “business matter” instead of “privacy” to reach a human being. Select “privacy” and instead of sending the dear-sir-you-cur you’ve scorched into their contact form, you get instructions for a hoop-jump and the advice that the only way to get your information off their site is to remove yourself from all the social media sites you use.

In other words, if you don’t want these bustards publishing your current address and phone number to your abusive ex- who threatened to cut off your head, pee down the hole, and flee with your children to East Zambia, you may not participate in any social media of any kind. Either that, or you must leave a trail of lies wherever you go.

I wonder if Spokeo’s management can spell “class action suit.”

Postscript: Go here for an excellent video taking you through FaceBook’s new privacy settings, step-by-step.

DIY Veterinary: The dog-proof hot-spot bandage

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Come the warm weather, dog-shedding season is upon us. Whenever Cassie blows her coat, she starts licking her favorite hot-spot site on her foreleg. After various veterinary consultations for various licking dogs, I’ve learned that the best way to deal with this problem is to cover the irritated spot until whatever it is that compels the dog to lick—whether it’s habit, instinct, or itch—passes.

If you’ve ever tried to bandage a dog, you know it’s easier said than done. No creature on this earth can unwrap a wound dressing faster than a dog can. This is a challenge that requires great persistence and ingenuity on the part of the human.

Recently I made a little discovery: the stretchy stick-to-itself bandaging, sold at Walgreen’s as Tender Tape and available online in various permutations, will hold a Bandaid or a piece of gauze in place without sticking to the dog’s hair. You’ll still  need to secure it with a little sticky tape, but with this strategy, you can minimize the amount of hard-to-remove, hair-pulling gummed tape needed to keep the dog from pulling off the bandage.

The scheme proceeds along these lines…

Dog-Bandaging

You need:

• a roll of gauze (a gauze patch or even a Bandaid can be substituted)
• a roll of stretchy tape
• a roll of waterproof bandage tape
• a gentle cleanser to clean the hot spot
• optional: antibiotic ointment or cortisone cream

To start out, here are a few important caveats:

1. Until  you know for sure that the dog can’t get this off, do not apply topical cortisone or antibiotics. Your dog should not be eating that stuff! Try the bandaging scheme first; when you confirm that the pooch can’t remove it for a day or more, then you can try a little medical goop.

2. Be very careful not to get the bandage on too tight! Apply the stretch bandage gently so that it lays on the dog’s leg about like a smooth-fitting cotton sock. Do not pull it tight! If it’s too tight, this stuff can cut off circulation, and since the animal can’t tell you how it feels, you must take care not to wrap the limb tightly.

3. Remove and replace the bandage every 24 to 36 hours.

4. Remove it immediately and replace if it gets wet.

Okay. First step is to wrestle the dog into position, on the ground or, if the critter is small enough, on a bed or table. If you have the dog up on a piece of furniture, you should have someone help to hold the animal so it does not fall off.

Saturate a cotton ball with a wound cleanser and gently wipe the inflamed area. I’ve been using Band-Aid Hurt-Free Antiseptic Wash. I’ve also tried hot spot itch relief spray but found it less than satisfactory: it doesn’t seem to ease the dog’s discomfort, and when you’re squirting it on a foreleg, it’s way too easy to accidentally get it in the dog’s face. That’s highly undesirable.

Remember: it’s not clear that hot spots actually itch. No one knows why dogs lick themselves raw—it may be a nervous tic or just a bad habit. For that reason, the fewer meds applied, the better.

Now that you’ve given the spot a token cleansing, apply some topical antibiotic or cortisone if you’re sure the dog can’t get the bandage off for a number of hours. Then cover this with a length of gauze bandage, gently and neatly wrapped around the dog’s leg. Hold onto the dog so it can’t squirm away while you grab the stretch bandage.

Wrap a length of stretch bandage neatly over the gauze, so that no gauze is sticking out. A two-inch wide bandage works easiest for this purpose, unless your dog is tiny. Remember not to wrap stretch bandaging too tight!

Take a small strip of waterproof tape and secure the seam closed. Now take another strip of waterproof tape and wrap it around your bandage along the top edge, so that a narrow strip of it attaches to the dog’s fur. This does not have to be very wide—for most dogs a fairly modest band will hold the bandage down. Depending on your dog’s determination, you may or may not have to run another strip around the bottom edge. For a really dogged dog, you may have to apply a sturdier glue-on strip by circling the leg several times with the waterproof tape.

Once I had a German shepherd who enjoyed licking holes in the pads of her feet. She was very skilled at removing barriers to this activity. In her case, I would build a little bootie out of waterproof first-aid tape over a gauze layer, wrapping and wrapping and WRAPPING until she couldn’t get through it and she couldn’t pull it off her foot. This worked pretty well—but sometimes it takes some real persistence to win out over a stubborn pooch.

Cassie gives up easily, thank goodness. So she doesn’t need to have some sort of iron maiden applied to her leg. I’ve found that if you can keep a hot spot covered for a week or so, it usually will heal up enough that the dog will quit licking it. For a while.

While you’re waiting for recovery, give the dog some salmon. It’s full of omega-3 fatty acids, said to ease hot spots.