"Held Harmless" Indeed

   So Social Security recipients are granted a  0.3% increase for 2017, no COLA this year, but an "adjustment."   But Part B Medicare costs also increase, in amount higher than the benefit paid. So, unless you have the hold harmless provision, your benefit check will probably be less in 2017 than in 2016.  A piddling amount either way, so no worries.  Wait til next year.

1-20-17

Maybe Kelly Conway is a good singer, possibly really, really good.  The goodest even.

Outta Here

    Today I went Christmas shopping, sort of, my goal being to get toys for the little tots, those who don't yet appreciate the value of cold hard cash.  I went Christmas shopping last year once, I think to Boscov's but I can't remember what I bought.  I only know it was a rather short excursion, though not as brief as today's.  I left the house about 1:30, knowing there wouldn't be much alone time.
   The weather was good, the traffic flow light, and it seemed  strangely reassuring to be driving my car and listening to NPR, as in the old days.  The speaker was Tom Friedman, and he spoke of his book and his thoughts of the present and for the future.  His talk lasted most of the way to Clifton Park, ending in the parking lot of Toys R Us.  He presented a lengthy analysis of today's society.  If one word could sum it up, that word would be:  CYBERSPACE. Disturbing in that there are no rules or police in cyberspace, and one person can affect the entire world.
    I walked through the doors into a world of toys, thousands and thousands of presentations and choices. I saw the tables by the entrance and picked up 3 toys, fairly equivalent in size and pricing.  I was not yet acclimated to shopping after such a long time away, and so was not ready to venture down the aisles looming and booming with merchandise for the youngest among us.
   I was so efficient, time-wise, that I drove across to Boscov's, and visited the men's department for some much needed basic items.  The women's department, particularly, looked as if it was ready to be cleared out for new merchandise; there were sales aplenty. My guess would be that the spring fashions are already waiting in the wings, and will be on display long before my next shopping excursion. I pulled a sweater from a 75% off display rack, and bought it.  It felt really soft and was really cheap, and it fit.  It is brown and will probably make me look like Chewbacca, but I wanted to buy something new.  Dorothy and I used to shop almost weekly and we always bought something.  On sale of course.  Never, never pay full price.
   I stopped at McDonald's to bring home supper, in keeping with my mini-vacation.  As I walked into the store, I was struck by the sight of the Christmas tree.  I almost commented on it, but than realized it must have been put up a while ago, while I hadn't been there since probably last September.  It was kind of a Rip Van Winkle moment.  What!  Public Christmas displays, Pre-Christmas, year-end sales?  Is there no end to the madness.

FB Fails

You might as well take the bridge if this were to happen to you:
1)  You post a picture of you and yours on Facebook, and you don't get the "Beautiful family" feedback
2) You say you're done, or over it, or you threaten to unfriend your FB cohort, and nobody asks why.

Maybe

NOW we have the Christmas Tree picture.

Christmas Cactus Revival?

Christmas cactus, from Ma's house, where it bloomed profusely, and then with plentiful blooms at our house.  But for last several years, no blossoms.  This year, a few. Hope for the future?

Social Insecurity

    I just received a notice from the SSA saying my benefits will increase by 0.3% because of a rise in the cost of living, and that I can use this letter as proof if I need to apply for bank loans or other assistance.
    So, with the COLA, the amount of my new benefit, to be received on or about Jan. 18, 2017 is:    exactly the same as my present benefit.  Must be the .003 add-on is too insignificant to bother with.  And I can take that to the bank.

The Keys to the Kingdom

Time was when there was

half a pound of keys on his key ring, so many they used to wear a hole in the lining of his pockets.  House keys, car keys, office keys, shed keys, mysterious keys to things forgotten.

Gracias, Elves

Tech Support

Thank you.

Parents and Plants

  Millennials, it is said, view their parents the same way they view potted plants. They want them around; they just don't want to interact with them.

IHS

   I don't know if there is such a place as Purgatory, but if so, I don't think I need to spend any time there, having spent the last hour sitting through a program called "A Pentatonix Christmas."

The Best of Times

    While I was half watching TV the other night,  some new show was on, where the main character was a doctor in some kind of neurological hospital. This young idealistic doctor asked one of his patients, a teenage girl with a serious brain condition, what would be her best wish.  Her answer was that she would want to attend a Phillip Phillips concert.  (I decided then to watch the rest of the show, knowing he would likely make a guest appearance. And he did.)  The young patient, mature beyond her years, then asked the doctor the same question.     The doctor, the thoughtful and dedicated type, answered by saying  that when he was a boy, he lived with his mother.  He would walk around the streets of his neighborhood at night and through the windows he would see people in their houses watching television together.  It moved him because his mother would never watch TV with him. He didn't say why.  His wish would be to have a family to sit and watch television with.  That would be his wish come true.
    The show, sentimental as it was, still struck a chord with me. It reminded me of the question the occupational therapist posed to  his patient. He asked what would be your idea of a good day, and the patient's answer was  having lunch with his daughter and grandsons and visiting with his brother.
    I believe wishing and hoping and yearning are all part of the grand scheme of things, but I don't think most of us know when our wishes are realized.  Until later.

Subaru

   The Subaru left the driveway about 12:30 p.m. today, leaving a vacant space in the driveway and other places. Since its purchase in 2009, it was at first a regular weekend  visitor to our driveway until it took up permanent residence in 2011.  During those first years, my heart would lift when it pulled into  the driveway, signaling a most welcome guest. When those visits came to an end, the Subaru came to reside here, and was gone for much of the day. The sight of it parked in the driveway meant I was not home alone.  For the last year, it mostly sat in the driveway with nowhere to go, again, sadly, without a driver.  Even thus, the sight of it there was reassuring in a sense, memory not always separate from reality.  I wish for the Subaru and its new passengers a safe and happy journey, and destination.

Electrifying

  So the keyboard is worn out, sticks on letters, particularly the letter "v." It was a surprise to find how frequently I type that letter, so annoying when there is a series of vvv. We had an extra keyboard, in actuality a Dell, the one that came with our present computer, but was never connected.  Though I've never replaced a keyboard, it needed doing so I figured it had to be an easy thing to do:  Simply unplug the old and plug in the new.
    That sounds easy and indeed it is---once you've found your way through the jumble of wires and cords and cables in colors of yellow, blue and black. I wiggled the wire, a black one, connected to the top of the old keyboard, and isolated it by following it through the tangles, and I mean tangles, of connections for the computer, the monitor, the keyboard, the phone, the answering and copy machine, a pair of speakers,  the Guardian alert, something called Trendnet, and the desk lamp.  I unplugged the old, taking great pains to remember which slot I removed it from. I located the proper opening and inserted the wire for the new Dell keyboard, and Voila!  Success.  The keyboard was functioning.
    But hold on, when I tried to access the internet, the message read "No connection."   Weaving through the jumble of wires must have detached or loosened something.  Back beneath the computer I go, exploring. I find on the floor there a clothespin.  Surely not used to hold a wire in position, I hope.  Then, a 2-inch long yellow plastic item with a white cap, something I'd never seen before, and also a slender 4-inch black plastic-handled implement of some type, completely foreign to me.  I place the 3 items on the table, and proceed to randomly push in or tighten every connection I can find, sporadically checking to see if we're back on the internet. Eventually I find a yellow wire that's loose, lying on the floor, at least by now.  I see that one end is connected at the back of the computer, but where the other end should go is a mystery to me.  I don't understand enough about technology to even see the big picture of what connects the computer modem to the internet, so I just look for open slots where I can plug something in. I find one and it works.  I don't remember where it was. I've never heard of anyone being electrocuted by computer, The day I hear it happens is probably the day I give up home repair.
   *I rather like the new keyboard. It clickity-clacks, like a typewriter.  The previous one was, or had become, silent, with the key pressure soft and kind of squishy.  Due to old age, I presume.

I of a Camera Hallelujah?

I dropped you from a kitchen chair,
It broke your lens, and to my despair
No longer can I forward photos through you.

'Twas all a dream / Sauteed Onion Skins

   It's legend that nothing is more intolerable than to be captive to the recounting of someone's dreams, so O Blog, I won't bore even you with the details.  But we were in Kingston, and nobody was old yet, and we were sitting down to dinner, and one of the featured dishes was Danny's offering of salad topped with sauteed onion skins.  I was curious to know how to prepare onion skins, if the skins were what I was thinking they were. Yes, I was told, as I filled my dish with the salad.  I was just about to serve myself the sauteed onion skins when I was abruptly called back to the present time. I suspect "I'll never find that recipe again."

Catching Up

 The Butterball Fresh Turkey was delicious, said all.  The new vegetable peeler is not a good fit, cannot come close to replacing the lost Ekco. It's okay for scraping, not peeling.  I did relent and pulled the dahlias out of the snow covered ground, some of them anyway.  They're in the cellar now, dead or alive I don't know.  J. replaced the last strip beneath the back "door to nowhere."  Mouse-proofed or not, who knows?

"Coffee Spoons"

   I don't drink coffee, but I get it, J. Alfred.  I know exactly what you mean.  I would just  replace coffee spoons with ebay listings.  Same general effect, though lacking the ordinariness  of the utilitarian spoons, the listings are somewhat more evocative of past life.