Superscript---lets you pay in advance for your medical treatment

 Just received notice from yet another medical office:  New Superscript will tell you what you owe BEFORE your appointment, and lets you pay in advance. So if the medical treatment you receive isn't lifesaving, you can rest in peace knowing your bill is paid. 

Could it be that Senior Citizens are - - - - UNDERDOCTORED?

 Just some observations:   Your doctor may have had a perfect SAT Score, and  earned outstanding accolades in Medical School. How is it then he seems to lack basic medical knowledge in his specialty? Either he is not that smart after all, or he just does not want to expend the fruits of his vast store of medical knowledge on short-term successes.  (I went to medical school to SAVE  lives, long term, not merely to add a few months here and there. 

  Fair Warning. Heads Up.  Pay Attention.  You Will Owe.

For a rather routine procedure, the practice schedules a time not for the procedure, but for a TIME  you will receive a PHONE CAll  to SCHEDULE that procedure. Be there to take the call.

Important notice: FEES 

   The handout the office gives you warns you in 3 different places that there will be a  $!00 Fee if 

              (1) you fail  to show at the scheduled time

                      or

              (2)  you reschedule LESS than 2 business days prior to your scheduled exam

                    or

            (3) you fail to follow the preparation for the exam.

So slink in to your appointment, and be on time, follow all the rules, and be grateful that your care is paramount. 

 

THE WAR

 Some of the earliest memories in my life were of war. Even though I was very young, I remember being terrified at the sound of airplanes, especially at night.  Even more frightening were the mandated blackouts.  Sirens would wail, and all lights were to  be turned off. My parents took it very seriously and our house would be plunged into darkness. At times, my father would serve as warden, I  think the term was, and would have to drive around a certain perimeter to make sure all lights were extinguished. He would insert a piece of folded cardboard over his car's headlights while he made the rounds, low beams deflected downward.   

 There were other signs of war: ration stamp booklets, the unavailability of food and other products, and my parents' reading the daily newspaper for the accounts of the war and the death counts. 

After Pearl Harbor, the country lived in constant fear of other attacks, of more bombs exploding on our soil. But that will never happen here, right?

Batten the hatches.

 Lock your doors for safety. I always do, at least at night, and often more times than that.  If about 365 days in a year is multiplied by 55 years, that would be about 20, 075 daily lock-downs, if the math is mathed right.My house was broken into twice, 10 years apart. The door was locked; the robbers kicked it in. Fortunately nobody was home. I don't think there were any other attempts that were thwarted by the door being locked. So it seems all 20,000 plus times the door was locked did not matter. 

   Of course, now I have alarms,  security cameras, and deadbolts  and I will  continue to lock the  doors. 

Socks

 I wear socks when my feet are cold. I  wear them to bed sometimes when my feet are cold.  But I can not sleep with socks on my feet. After I'm in bed for a while, and my feet warm up, I have to take the socks off. Of course I don't want to get out of bed to remove my socks, so I slide them off using the opposite foot. Sometimes to do do is  easier than other times, but usually success is achieved without a struggle. Last night is the last time I will wear the blue socks, one of which is pictured above. They have to be the tightest socks I have ever attempted to remove from a prone position. I tried the usual strategy, which has always before worked. But not last night; the socks defied every ordinary attempt. Determined not to get out of bed, I had to contort myself into a position where I could reach my feet with my hands in order to strip the socks off my feet. My struggle to do so was way more time consuming and difficult than that of the handcuffed woman in Michigan who slipped through the window of a police car. I don't admire her for whatever crime she committed, but she landed on her feet and was able to take off running. Kudos for that.

4-Carrot Dream

 I've written. O Blog, before, about how having dreams affected me, but I was surprised to have come across a purportedly scholarly article about "How to Remember  Your  Dream" and cited  the findings of studies which showed exactly how long it takes for a dream to slip away into oblivion before it is lost forever. I have found that to be true, except for the times dream "scenes" pop into my consciousness. I've found writing them down helps to calm them down. 

  I can recall last night's dream only by the single word---red. That stirs up a dream where I am in the parking lot of a store, very like that in Schaghticoke, when a woman drives her car, loses  control of it, narrowly misses hitting my car, but seemingly does not consider herself at fault. I wait patiently in my car for her to leave but as she heads toward the exit, she strikes a red car. This time attention must be paid. I want to avoid being a witness, so I drive away, to the home of one of my children. No one is home but I go into the house and when they arrive home, I explain why I am there, a rather awkward and feeble explanation, as I recall.

But wait, there's more. I went back to sleep, to what seemed like a non-dream. 

     When I cooked the St. Patrick's Day dinner, I bought new carrots. Those in the vegetable drawer of my refrigerator had been there a while, and were starting to look their age, with those little white rootlets starting to form. There were 4 such shriveled carrots, so I opened the kitchen window and started to throw them out. Maybe a hungry little rabbit might want to nibble on them. One, two, three--out they went. But I held one back. 

 For some reason, I remembered an old friend from my days as a telephone representative in Troy. Ann  lived in a downstairs apartment in Lansingburgh, then a peaceful and reputable neighborhood.  I used to drive her home when her boyfriend had her car, and Ann and I attended events here and there and I always drove. Her home was very well kept; she had a cat and a dog and many well tended houseplants. I particularly recall a carrot plant that trailed around the windows of her living room, a remarkable sight to see such a  green and flowing carrot plant.

 So I decided to keep carrot number 4, even though it looked dry and dormant. There was a plastic bottle in my sink, so I filled it with water and stuck the slender carrot inside it. A few days later the carrot started to grow its foliage on top, and in a few more days, it looked rather nice, so I kept it on the windowsill and refilled the water as needed.

I try to restrict my mundane, yes, boring, activities to my own personage, but one day when my daughter was here, I decided to show her my thriving little carrot. I went to the kitchen to get it, but to my dismay the once green growth was now brown, dead and dessicated. So I said nothing, and after my daughter left, I eventually went to bed. 

  The next morning, I went to the kitchen to throw #4 Carrot out the window to join its tossed out kin, but there was the plant, green and thriving, as it still is. 

So maybe a dream? Or maybe a Vegetable Resurrection?

 

  

Victory Is Mine (small though it may be)

 Since I have nothing important to do, I can indulge myself in trivial pursuits. Justice was done, finally.