Raincharm’s Weblog

Today started with sleeping in. I had a hard time falling asleep. And the rest of the day I kept saying, “It’s X o’clock already?”

The first order of the day was a trip to Costco. It had been since before Christmas, and maybe Thanksgiving when we last graced the establishment. Part of our Costco runs includes food bank donations, so the second order was a stop at the food bank.

And then it was lunch, already.

In the afternoon I finally made it back to the basement, or more specifically, the garage.

Rearranging a lot of stuff at first, swept and vacuumed, and then built the second set of shelves.

The second set of brown shelves is a set we have had for some time. It lived in the kitchen for several years. Then it was relegated to the basement, where it was subjected to our recent flood. The darkness on the bottom shelf shows how much the particle-board soaked up. It is dry now. .

My first use for these sets of shelves is to collect stuff that we want to get rid of. And then get rid of it through a free garage sale. And whatever doesn’t “sell” will be taken to wherever that’s not our house. The particle board shelves will be departing is amoung the pieces free to any interested party.

The tools on the wall to the right, are not leaving. There is still much to clean and go through in the basement, and finding a home for all, at least temporarily, will be a challenge.

I’m pretty sure there’s at least one more set of shelves in our near future.

As noted in an earlier post we take walks and Carl keeps his eyes peeled for coins. This afternoon we set out yet again.  A 10,000 step walk in the end although that was not a goal when we started.

Carl spotted 7 coins, all pennies. 

One required a repeat visit to an intersection because it was too busy when it was first spotted. It was just as busy on the return trip, but there was a swoop during the crosswalk passage planned, and it went off flawlessly.

“One of these things is not like the others.”

Can you spot the oddball?

One is a wheatback.

Wheatbacks are relatively rare nowadays. Produced from 1909 to 1958.

The date on this particular penny is 1943, which means it’s a Steel Penny. They changed to steel in 1943, with only dated 1944, because they needed the copper for the war effort.

The Lincoln Memorial was added to the backside of the coin in 1959, on the 50th anniversary of the Lincoln penny.

This is all to avoid talking about work in the basement, that just didn’t happen today

I had ideas of what I wanted to get done yesterday, and that didn’t happen. So today I tried again.

First up, moving forward with getting some new shelves built, to be able to store things off the floor. As with most of my projects, there are at least 3 steps that have to happen before the identified task can happen.

In this case the box with the shelves to be was in the garage. I decided to try to clear a path to the basement door, so I would be less likely to trip over whatever.

The primary concerns for tripping were leftover vinyl siding pieces. These are light but long. The beach chair setup was done to get long pieces off of the wet floor following the flood. The pieces are so long that they only fit against the west wall (right side of the picture). I started to move the siding and then noticed how dirty the floor was. Cue sweeping and then vacuuming. Carl assisted with the final siding move, because they are so long. I’m not really happy with just having them sit on the floor again, but need to not distract myself too much.

Finally able to open the box and start extracting shelf parts. The total weight of the box is just over 100 lbs, so moving pieces was easier.

The actual shelf directions were pretty easy. A second set of hands to hold pieces in place was helpful. While the theory of construction was easy, there was one connector piece that was slightly bent, so it wouldn’t slide into the shelving leg.

Aaaargh.

Luckily, a little leverage with a screwdriver head allowed us to make the piece usable.

In the end, shelving unit 1 was completed. For this location we are using a lower, 2-wide, essentially two shelving units setup. The second set may be the taller 5 shelf setup.

All done before noon.

After lunch we embarked on a long walk. About 10,000 steps.

And then cooking for future meals. A few steaks into a marinade for tomorrow. And then made lentil chili for later this week.

And I’m ready for bed.

I spent much time at the work station pictured above today. This had not been my intention upon waking. I was more dressed for basement work, including putting on my steel-toed boots. These were boots I had for work work, and they’re comfortable. If I’m planning to be lifting or carrying things with weight, I figure it may save a toe.

While at the work station I am not sure why I would need to worry about my feet, maybe drop a mouse or something.

With my feet protected, I focused on learning more about how to track Medicare costs and coverage. Since joining Medicare we have had multiple doctor appointments, but have yet to get a bill. And I don’t think it’s because the coverage is so great, but that we don’t quite understand the path of payment request progression.

We had another appointment today, and I was trying to catch up on tracking. To track it is necessary to know more than just, there was another appointment.

After some sleuthing, I found the records showing costs for the visits, and initial coverage, but most still say pending, so no final $$, yet. And still no bills.

And today’s appointment begat at least two more. Fun, fun, fun.

Back to the basement tomorrow…

I finally got re-started on the recovery work, after a few days off. Cmpleting cleaning the north end of the basement was the goal today. Goal basically accomplished.

This end of the basement used to be a room. Bedroom sized, and we used it as an extra bedroom occasionally. The most frequent occupant was Dennis. He would stay with us for a few weeks at a time, or a summer, or whatever was needed. We were his address in Washington. Dennis was a film archivist, collector, and protectionist. Over the years Dennis had theaters, put on programs in other’s theaters, homes, overseas, where ever there was a job. Follow the link to see his Wikipedia page.

At some point we acquired a weight machine and needed to find a place for it to live. The room was the only place it really worked. Except that it was just a bit too tall. After some measuring we cut our a piece of the ceiling between the joists, so the high point would fit.

When we were planning our remodel it was decided to remove the room. It was definitely not up to code, and any inspections would require changes anyway. As an old house, removal included noxious materials. Lead paint was a layer or two down, and not too bad to deal with as it only was exposed when the wall or ceiling board was cut. But the vinyl floor tiles had asbestos. So this was my introduction to asbestos removal. Masks, bags and special dumps. In the end this opened up a larger more usable basement space.

By contrast, the work today was limited.

Wiped down all of the exercise equipment.  The weight machine has been joined by a recumbent bicycle, elliptical, and a piece that can be used for sit-ups and other things. Most of this was cleaning accumulated dust. The equipment does get used pretty regularly, by Carl primarily.

Swept and vacuumed and mopped about half of the space. There’s a fan running to assist drying.

In the picture the white areas are concrete that was painted with a coating to try and stop water seeping through the walls and floor. It may have worked to some degree as it had been several years since we had an issue. The darker areas on the floor are where seeps came up. It’s not wet now, but the white coloring is gone.

Okay, so this is not really interesting information, but it is a record for me.

One of our jaunts today was to pick up prescriptions. It was the first big order on our Medicare plan. Of the seven prescriptions, 6 had a $0 cost. The 7th was over $600. For a 3 month supply. This almost hit the deductible for the year. We knew this was coming and had stocked up as much as we could on the old health care plan where the same order would have been $60. We may reexplore the Canadian drug pipeline that we had used when a previous health plan had similarly high costs as we’re paying now. But with tariffs and other political issues I’m not sure it will be as easy as it was several years ago.

Our big outing today was applying to volunteer. Actually step 2 of the application process. The first part was online, several months ago now. This part was called a tryout and was actually an interview. The questions were either a follow-up on the earlier application and a few new questions.

Part 1 had 24,000 applicants. 6,000 made the cut to Part 2. Apparently 2,400 will be chosen from this group. What are our chances? Who knows.

We want to be involved when the World Cup, somehow. The most likely scenario is going down to the stadium area and hanging out to participate in the vibe. The second scenario would be landing a volunteer gig. The third scenario is managing to get a ticket through one of the lotteries.

Carl only applied because I wanted to. If we don’t get chosen I will be a little disappointed, but fine. Carl will be fine either way.

The focus is really on having the soccer world come to Seattle. However it turns out for us.

I try to make sure I get something done each day. Today’s list is pretty short.

I made an updated list because I had crossed most off of my last list.

I checked on our first big prescription order since moving to Medicare and new providers. The order was placed on Monday morning. They suggested we would hear it was filled and ready for pickup on Wednesday. Nada, so I checked on-line this morning.  The site indicated 3 of the 7 were ready for pickup. The other 4 showed, “In progress.” We don’t want to go to the pharmacy 2 or 3 or 4 times. That was the reason for ordering them all together. We have time, this time, so we’re waiting. I may try mail order next time, but that seems like we have to change pharmacies, and I would like to just deal with one source if possible. Maybe I’m making this harder than it needs to be. Learning curve and all.

Besides dealing with drugs, we took a long walk in the cool, but not raining, morning.

One of my post-retirement self-assigned tasks is to go through all of our tools and combine like types and figure out how to store them so we know; 1) what we have,  and 2) where they are. The wet, now dry – at least for the time being if it ever/never stops raining  – basement, has expanded the basement sorting well beyond tools. So the tools themselves will have to wait their turn.

Yesterday I decided it was time to sort and file all of the paperwork received in conjunction with acquiring Medicare, in all of its parts. After pulling out all of the brochures provided to help, confuse, overwhelm, and explain the alphabet soup of Medicare choices, it was not a large amount of paper.

And while I was looking at our filing system to decide which file box they should join (medical or finance) I started looking at some of the other paperwork we had. Sorting through this was almost a fun activity, in a liberating way. Old work reviews, medical plans that we’re no longer part of, explanation of benefits from a decade or more ago are all headed for shredding or recycling. I did stop at the EOBs for 2018, the year of Carl’s half million dollar medical expenses. I just wasn’t quite ready to send it on its way.

There are guidelines for how long to save certain records, and I probably exceed the suggestions for some things. On one hand I still have the gas/travel records for my 1980 Honda Civic that lasted 20 years and 280,000 miles. It contains records of my trips crossing the country back and forth, first by myself, then with boyfriend/husband in tow, and finally with kids. But on the other shoulder is the voice reminding me of going through my father-in-law’s files after he passed, and not wishing that on our kids.

We started the day dealing with a mostly dead car. It had been mostly dead for a few days. Mostly dead means the idiot lights would turn on when the key was turned, but only clicking after that, no engine start.

Apparently the mostly dead had been preceded by a few starts when it clicked, but eventually started. This almost dead situation was noted, but not acted upon, and the car parked nose down at the bottom of our sloped driveway. What this means is that our jumper cables are not long enough to reach. On the positive side, it was in the bottom spot, not blocking our other car.

It needed some help, so we made an appointment for this morning. But still needed to get the car to the shop, either by starting it or towing it. Cue AAA. They came by and did a quick diagnostic and jump. According to the nice AAA person, it was the battery. And the battery was original to the 2017 car. As they are expected to last about 5 years, I guess it was time. Moral of the story, pay attention to almost dead signals, and don’t park in the least accessible location.

And don’t forget the smaller variety. I think we’re out of 9 volt, AAA, and possibly low on AA too.