A visit to the computer fixit shop and the bookstore

 

Today was not the best of days, nor was it the worst of days.  It was a day where things didn't go right, and yet, not go completely wrong.

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RQS and I decided to leave the apartment later than we planned.  Our first stop was at the computer fixit store, where she had to get some more work done on her computer.  Whenever she tried to start MS-Word, the logon process from her old job would start, making it impossible for her to use the software.  Of course, this had to get fixed, and we brought the computer into the shop at 3:30 pm.  One hour later, she left the store, but the computer was still in the shop.  My guess is that the fixit guy wasn't picking up on the idea that her old firm had updated her computer's registry to start a security program whenever MS-Word was started.  Hopefully, he'll be able to track down this startup process and kill it once and for all.

Next, we were off the the bookstore to buy a 2025 planner.  However, they are no longer sold in the store, as few old timers like us were buying these items.  So, RQS will need to log on to Amazon to find what she wants.  However, while there, both of us bought books we could read, my book being about the Sex Lives of Presidents. (I can't wait to read the juicy bits....)

Finally, we picked up some stuff at the supermarket before we got home.  Once home it was time to cook dinner and time to do laundry.  After dinner, I tripped over RQS, ruining a lampshade in my fall.  I guess it's a visit to Walmart in the morning to replace it.

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As I noted earlier, things did go wrong, but not in the most disastrous way....

Doing nothing in the middle of the week.

 

Today's entry was written on New Years Day.  Neither RQS nor I felt like getting dressed today, so we took care of little things that we could do around the apartment.  Yet, most of the day, we were sitting around and watching YouTube videos.  RQS decided to bake some rye bread, and she took care of that during breaks in videos.

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So, why am I posting today's entry, instead of writing a "thought piece"?  The answer is simple.  I don't want to dwell on current events, as the prospects of what will happen on January 20th gets me upset.  With that being said, I am glad that the late President Carter's death will result in flags flying at half mast throughout most of January.

Over the past few hours, several people from my present and past sent me New Years' wishes, including a woman I once dated. However, the one communication I didn't expect was from DCD's ex-girlfriend, N.  Even though DCD is no longer N's boyfriend, she still tries to throw him some work to help him get by.  Unfortunately, DCD has gone incommunicado since the day after Christmas, and she hasn't been able to reach him for a shift scheduled for the end of the week.  I feel sorry for DCD, as both his age and health will get in the way of a "normal" job.

Several years ago, DCD had a benign brain tumor.  If I had heard him explain why he hasn't been working for a while, I wouldn't hire him due to the health insurance risk my firm might be taking on.  (Another reason for single payer healthcare.  For the time I've known him, DCD has never been able to own up to his failures and learn from them.  Last year, while driving him home from work (after a dinner at a diner), he talkws about his family holding an intervention for him.  Knowing him, he probably retreated into himself and walled himself off from honest criticisms of his behavior.  

When I sold DCD my Honda, I expected that he would be able to pay me $100/month until 24 payments were made.  Although I received 3 payments, he has avoided me since the 3rd payment.  I wouldn't push him into paying me, given that he still wants to try paying child support for his 2 kids.  It is unfortunate that he either refuses to get his support adjusted to reflect his lack of salary, or that he is unable to get the support amount changed due to other actions on his part. So, I will consider it a miracle if he ever finishes paying for the car, as I expect that he will pass away as an indigent without anyone being notified of it.

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On other matters....

RQS would like to get off of the ship at each port of our upcoming cruise.  I feel that it might be risky to travel as Marian and get off at some ports.  Since one of our stops will be in a port I have never visited before, I decided to write to the island's tourist bureau to find out whether I could travel as Marian, and still carry Mario's ID.  Depending on the answer to this question (and others I may have of other authorities), I will either travel as Marian (my preference) or as Mario (my default).

Given all of the positive feelings that have been expressed about Luigi Mangione and the healthcare CEO assassination, I wonder if he can get a fair trial.  A truly impartial jury will be totally ignorant of the world around them, something I wouldn't want for a jury evaluating evidence presented against me.  A biased jury will react to many things, including their opinions about the accused and their victim.  Given that our incoming president is being paid off by the highest bidder, I would love to see our current president pardon Luigi at the end of his term.  This will not affect the New York State case against this man.  But it can send a powerful message to the healthcare industry that the public is sick and tired of the abuses of that industry and will not take it any longer.

RQS noted that my brother tends to tune me out when I talk, possibly because I present facts with details before my conclusions.  Sadly, he doesn't realize that he does something similar.  But then, if we weren't related, we wouldn't bother being friends.  I find it amazing that we came from the same family.  But even more so, he is not a person who is introspective in any way.  I guess that my path in life made it possible for me to improve myself by learning from experiences - something I don't think my brother has done.

Well, enough for now.....

I'm glad the holiday season is over. (A quick post)

By the time you read this, we'll be two weeks into the new year.  I'm looking forward to the downing of Christmas trees, the packing of ornaments, and the cessation of holiday music.

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In this last day of the old year, I got a pleasant surprise - the 401k withdrawal I scheduled was received in time for the 2024 tax year.  This means that any unplanned income I receive in 2025 will not push me into another tax bracket.  Yay!

For the most part, this was a do-nothing day, until we decided to run a few errands, get a bite to eat, and see a movie.  (Who wants to spend New Year's Eve in a place where one knows nobody, save the person sitting opposite you at dinner?)  So, I got dressed in a tunic and leggings, and out the door we went.  Did we do everything we wanted to do?  No!  But we did have a good pizza, and we did do our shopping at the drugstore before going home for the night.

I hope the new year started out well for you....

The darned has been assembled, and the old chest is gone!

 

The chest has finally been assembled, and the old one is out of the house.  But this wasn't the simple thing that it sounds like.  

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When we awoke this morning, I had to figure out a way to get the old chest into a place in the living room with enough space for me to slide the new chest in its place.  This was not a task I was going to do as Marian, as I knew I was going to work up a sweat and ruin the nightie that I was given for Christmas.  Instead, I put on the clothes I had worn a couple days before and then started my process.

First, I had already emptied the chest of things I wanted to keep which were previously stored inside. However, I still had to disconnect the TV that sat upon the old chest and place it in a safe place - my bed.  And only then, could I extricate it from its space in my bedroom.  As I pulled it out, it started falling apart, due to it being a cheap piece of furniture from 40+ years ago. Even worse, there was a lot of dust and cobwebs behind the chest that I had to clean out, as I might never go back there for several years.

Once I got the old chest in a safe place, it was time to slide the new chest in its place.  The first problem I encountered was that the sliders didn't help me move the chest past the carpet protectors in my desk area.  To deal with this, I tilted the new chest up, and asked RQS to put sliders back into places where they could again do their function.  The next problem came soon enough.  The new chest was slightly wider than the old chest, and I had to snug it against another chest and my air conditioner.  AARGH!  And this led to the third problem: I had to use a slider to left the adjacent chest 3/8", so that the decorative overhang on the top of the adjacent chest would not be pulled up from the body of that chest. Finally, the new chest was in place, and I began to transfer clothing from another chest to the new chest, giving RQS a place to put her clothes.

Now, I had one more task to take care of: Bringing the old chest down to the dumpster area to be picked up with the next bilk trash pickup.  To do this, I had to lift the old chest over an end table, and then wedge it through the doorway and onto the top landing.  While doing this, the old chest started falling apart,  One crossbeam and a 3/8" laminate board came off the side, making the chest unusable for any scavenger that may come upon it in a dumpster dive.  Other pieces came undone while I dragged the chest down the steps and over to the dumpster area.  A little later, RQS took the drawers and placed them by the (now) destroyed chest.  Sadly, if this chest was as solid as the inexpensive Ikea chest that replaced it, it would still be in my apartment.

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Did I really need to deal with replacing this chest now?  Probably not.  But since the old chest's drawer glides were broken, I could no longer use the chest to store anything I wanted to get at on a regular basis.  Now, I can get to my lingerie and some of my feminine wardrobe without problem.  Maybe now, I can go shopping in my dresser and closet again, and not buy things to only end up in a donation bag several years later.

And now to assemble the darned thing....

 

Today's story starts with what happened overnight.  RQS and I got to sleep late last night, and this would be a minor problem.  Delivery was scheduled for some time between 8 am and noon, and I wanted to be sure to be ready for it.  

Sometime in the middle of night, I had to get up for a bio-break.  Somehow, I wasn't as sure on my feet as I should have been, and tripped in an interesting way.  First, I started falling towards the far end of the bed, and then rebounding to the right until I was stopped by a bedroom chest.   It was if I were drunk, and stumbled across the room.  RQS was worried that I might have hurt myself (I did - a minor bruise on my ankle), and helped me get back on my feet.

After my bio-break, I was back in bed for a couple of hours, then got dressed to await my delivery.  My ankle was hurting a little, and I knew that I couldn't lift the two boxes from the entry to my building to my apartment on my own.  Luckily, the delivery men came at 10 am, and brought the two boxes into the apartment for me to assemble.  And then, it was time for me to go back to sleep - until 2 pm.

 

I started work on the chest sometime after 4 pm, and it was slow going.  Ikea's instructions are written without words.  They only use diagrams to instruct the assembler what pieces to use for each step of the process.  And this can be confusing, as not all of their illustrations are clear enough to use without test fitting the pieces together.  I don't know if this is a deliberate part of the design process.  But I feel that someone with more experience assembling Ikea furniture could have done this faster than I could.  In fact, It wasn't until a little bit after 7 pm that I got the body of the chest put together.  

Shortly after this, we took a break for dinner.Then I started up again around 8:30 pm, finishing around 10 pm.  It was a long time taken to assemble the dresser, and I hope it does the job I want it to do for as long as I need it done.  Is the chest perfect?  No!  I can't open it as fully as I could the old chest, for safety reasons.  But it will hold much of the intimates in my female wardrobe, and that's what's important to me now.

PS: Tomorrow, I'll move the old chest to the trash area and move the new one to the now vacant space.

I inherited a dust collector. (And wish I didn't.)

 

As many of you already know, I scheduled a trip to California this past April to see my uncle, but he passed away 10 days before my arrival.  This weekend, I visited my brother to say hello and came back with the above "dust collector".

But first....

We had been waiting several days for notice that RQS's prescription had made it to the drug store.  Given all of the hassles RQS had at the hospital shortly before Thanksgiving, it made sense for her to pick up the prescription during 2024.  This would allow her to avoid the headache of getting this expensive prescription renewed by a new doctor shortly into the new year, when she'd be under time pressure to both get the prescription renewed and to pick it up.  This notice came two days after Christmas, so we scheduled our visit to RQS's neighborhood over the weekend.

It was strange driving to RQS's place on a Saturday, when there were none of the usual traffic jams that are normally endured while heading towards her place.  If we had choices, we would not have been on the roads, as the fog was so thick that one could barely see well enough to drive.  Yet, we made it to RQS's place, and took care of multiple pharmacy visits.

Next, it was off to see my brother.  It was good to see him, although things are not going well between him and my sister in law.  I won't go into details here, but I will say that he has a strained relationship with his wife that he may be making worse.  As soon as we got there, it was off to a seafood joint that my brother picked out.  Both of us picked the twin lobster dish, while RQS had the lobster roll.  All of us were filled to the gills by the time we left.

When we got back to my brother's house, I gave him a gag gift for Christmas.  This gift was a novelty takeoff on a "Magic 8 Ball", where one could get an answer of "Yes", "No", or "Maybe" by reading the message at the bottom of the ball.  My gift was a "Magic 6 Ball" that I found on Woot.com.  Unlike the 8-Ball, the 6-Ball produces only useless answers.  It'll make for a curious paperweight.  He asked me to hold on for a minute while he went inside the house to pick up something for me.  He returned with a statue that my uncle won for his work in TV.  Now, I have a dust collector that I can not sell, nor wish to give away.  However, I would have rather had the chance to meet him one last time, and to know him better....

You snooze, you lose... (a short post)

 

One of the problems I have is procrastination.  It's a common problem, but one which have caused me to lose out on taking a 401k distribution in 2024.  It's not as much of a big deal as it sounds - I don't need the money right away, but I wanted to get the distribution made in 2024 for tax reasons.  Instead, my delay has likely caused the distribution into tax year 2025.

There are several things going on that I want to take care of in 2025.  One of them is getting a tooth implant, replacing a molar that I lost over a decade ago.  This will help me with chewing, as I put too much wear and tear on one side of my mouth.  Then, I'd like to do some apartment remodeling, specifically in the bathroom, where I want to replace the toilet, vanity (and sink), and medicine cabinet (with electric outlet).  Although I could take this money out of my savings account, I chose to take it out of my 401k.  This way, I can keep my already taxed funds at an acceptable level.

Strangely enough, not having anything to do while RQS is here encouraged me to start finding places for some of the mess in my apartment.  Clothes are migrating back into my closet, replacement furniture is arriving over the weekend, and I'm seeing some results from my minimal labor.  Yet, I have to fight the inclination to put things off, so that I can keep up momentum.  This is the hardest thing to do.

Soon, I'll get back to finding an electrolysist. I still want to clear off the beard from my face once and for all. I'm tired of dealing with shaving on a daily basis.  This is one of the important things I want to do in the new year....   

We'll see what happens during the new year....