WC092723: How I shake off a bad mood.

 

Today's challenge is how I shake off a bad mood.

  

Dr. Gray mentions that when men have a problem that they are having a hard time solving they go into their cave, and that a woman needs to leave them alone until they've solved the problem.

My wife calls it getting moody and brooding.

I have a hard time sleeping when something is bugging me, which really bugs my wife as I get up and go into another room so she can sleep, but somehow this doesn't help her sleep.

Fixating on it can be self-defeating, the more you think about it the fewer options you have come up with to solve it. This is where Archimedes comes in. He had a problem and couldn't sleep so his wife told to take a bath. When he got into the bath and he saw the water rise from displacing his mass, that was the problem he was working on and it solved the problem and he left the bathtub and ran naked across Syracuse yelling "Eureka, Eureka" (I found it.) 

I usually can't sleep because my mind is fixated on the problem, so I listen to an audiobook, that way I can stay in bed and not disturb my wife. Hearing aids are hooked up to my phone.

During the day and I'm still brooding on the problem I turn to comedy. If you start laughing problems seem to melt, get put into perspective and a solution comes, or I accept it and move on.

I had a particularly bad principal one year who was on my case and my blood pressure was rising. I was wondering if I would be standing on a streetcorner with a sign "Will Teach For Food."

We went to see The Addams Family, which kind of dates this problem and when we left the theater I told my wife, "I needed that." It lifted the burden I was carrying off my shoulders. 

The next day in the teacher's lounge a special ed teacher told me, "She's temporary, you're permanent." That helped too.

When the principal finished my evaluation, she mentioned I wasn't working with the students. Shorthand for outside the classroom. I told her I was sponsor the Rodeo club and Youth and Government. She backed off but was left with a pissed off teacher. Oh, how good it is to be retired.

When problems arise, we have the complete Becker with Ted Danson on DVD, and we sit and laugh. There's The Fifth Element, which we just say Big Badda Boom, and know it's time to watch and escape for a few hours.

An earlier post I mentioned the problems I've been having getting a doctor's appointment for the last six months. When I got the call with a date and time, even though it's another six months away, again a burden was lifted. Sometimes the problems don't get fixed right away. I found ways to relieve the stress in that time with various coping mechanisms.

The supplemental trap

 When I retired the Educational Retirement Health Care Authority offered two choices for a provider. BCBS or Presbyterian. BCBS worked with all medical facilities and with Pres you were locked into just their doctors.

I chose BCBS and then Pres announced they would not honor BCBS. That stuck me with Lovelace, which doesn't have as many doctors or facilities as Pres. I did get good doctors and needed little more that treatment for diabetes.

When I reached 65 and went on Medicare the choices were a lot more. BCBS offered the only supplemental plan, Pres, United Health, Humana have advantage plans.

My mother was on the supplemental plan, it cost more, but everything was covered that Medicare didn't. I've been pretty happy with it until the doctor I had was so tied up I couldn't get in to see him and he's left Optum which took over Lovelace. 

Oak Street Health recently came into New Mexico and was advertising. I got an appointment last February, had an initial consultation and did a blood test. In March when going over the results the doctor was concerned the prostate test was too high and could be cancer. He said he'd do a referral to a urologist. I told him not to book one with Pres as they don't take BCBS.

For five years the Optum doctor never did a blood test for prostate cancer for a patient over 65!

In May I get a referral to a Pres doctor. I declined telling someone in Virginia to contact the doctor and get a referral to Optum. I called Optum and was told they don't have a urology department. Let that sink in, the second largest medical provider in this state doesn't have a urology department!

I scheduled an appointment with the doctor in August, since I was getting nowhere on getting a referral to either UNM Hospital or NM Cancer Center for an appointment. I explained the problem again about BCBS. 

August 21 I've got a referral, and it said if I haven't heard anything from the doctor named to call thier number and let them know. I called the person in Virginia who said they'd do another referral. I wait two weeks and getting someone else they said contact the doctor to get the appointment. I did.

I now have an appointment for March 1. It's taken a full year to see a doctor about possible cancer.

Part 2.

I got the packet for open enrollment for this year. The same offerings are there, and I planned on taking the poison pill and going with Pres, but I looked over the other Advantage Plans. Pres does not have a supplemental.

BCBS supplemental is $240 a month. Pres Advantage 1 is $98, but there are copays, but $2,500 max for the year. United Health's Advantage 1 is $46/month with copays half those of Pres, and $2,500 max/year.

I calculated the 240 I paid last year against United's 46 and even if I maxed out for the year, I paid 52 dollars more for a plan that I barely used for the last five years. Nearly 200 extra month I've been paying.

Now I know just as I might be getting to the point of maxing out the plan.

WC: Would You Move to a Mars Settlement?

 

Today's challenge is, would you move to a Mars settlement.

That's easy. Not at my age. I'm not moving anywhere willingly.

WC: 060923 Song lyrics I've misheared.

 

Song lyrics I've misheard.

Oops, somehow my link to Long and Short Reviews got my email not my name.

My brother and I in front of the Record Music Company around 1962. My baby sister had a Nipper a stuffed dog. FYI, Nipper was the dog in front of the gramophone bell that was the RCA logo.

My grandparents owned a music store in Pueblo, Colorado. It sold .45's, LP's, band instruments, the first color TV's in town, late 50's early 60's. My aunt and her family took over the business and my father got a job in Albuquerque, but I'd spend summers with my grandparents in Pueblo. 

We would go fishing and ride around the state, but between those times I'd spend time in "The Store" behind the counter selling mostly .45's for 95 cents plus a nickel tax for a buck.

I read the entire Lord of the Rings the summer between 7th and 8th grade. That's how little I had to do at times those summers.

I learned early how to count money back to the customers and it irks me to this day to have a clerk hand me a handful of change at check out.

The buyers would want to hear the song first and I would play them on the turntable on the counter. Sometimes they'd even buy a record I recommended. I got paid in the records I wanted to keep. Came back with lots of them, aunt only let me have singles not albums.

There were times when someone would hear a song on the radio and come in asking for that song.

The most blaring mishearing of a song I remember was someone wanting, "Bones falling apart in the street."

It turned out to be Boneparte's Retreat," by Glenn Campbell.

It was fun when everyone wanted the song "Feeling Groovy," by Simon and Garfunkel. AKA "The 59th Bridge Street Song."

Usually, the song had a repeated phrase in a chorus, but the title came from an opening line.

Best off the top of my head right now.