Over a barrel

Oil was $32 a barrel when GWBush took office and 2001 now it’s $118 a barrel and rising. George has been good to his actual base. Need I say more?

Job search back burner

I have job searches coming to me daily from 2 places online and the only place that is hiring is the local hospital with 12 hour shifts in what is I’m sure a “hair on fire atmosphere”. I can’t physically do that anymore. I’m in decent shape,I walk a lot,have stairs here and all but I give out pretty easy. I don’t know if something is wrong with me physically or it’s just that wonderful trifecta of menopause,moving and stress.

   I’ll apply after things settle a bit and see if they can accomodate me in any way with a part time position or something. Seems like they might want to hire an experienced RN who is compassionate and cares about people. At least it seems like they should.

How seniors are taken advantage of

Since I’ve been care taking my elderly parents I’ve had to fend off quite a few unscrupulous salesmen and bill collectors.My Dad has dementia and is unable take care of anything like he used to which leaves the burden to my Mom when I’m not there.If someone calls and raises their voice and says anything about something going to “collection” by God Mom has her credit card already out before she verifies if it’s a valid charge. And once you pay even you can’t get it back. Her Macy’s account has been CLOSED and a charge came through it anyway for a credit card protection plan and she didn’t pay it and got charged a late charge for something she didn’t even want in the first place. I called up and with some difficulty with Macy’s found out how they charged something to a closed account and with much more difficulty got to the actual biller who was very reluctant to take the charge off. I sort of insisted and it was done but that is just one example.

    Another one was the skilled nursing home that my Dad stayed at to recover from his broken hip.They billed him for something then late charges,etc. I tried to call,the only person responsible was on vacation. By the time I was able to call again they were more late charges and my Mom wanted to just pay it because she was scared of what they might do. I called them up and spoke to the actual responsible person and they finally checked and saw that Dad had the required Insurance coverage already and that this was not a valid bill. I asked why didn’t they check this before,she stated that “Well,nobody called’. So if I hadn’t called my Mom would’ve paid because she was frightened and I’m SURE they wouldn’t have gotten the overage back.

   I’m sure unscruptulous people prey on the elderly taking advantage of their fear and diminished capacity for understanding exactly what’s going on and it makes me furious!

The Beach is so fun!

We went looking for this particular park that is supposed to be a bird sanctuary but being an idiot I used Mapquest to find it which means of course that I didn’t. Instead we drove around until we came to Vero beach and we stopped just to breathe the fresh air and maybe get our feet wet. We didn’t plan to stay but Ethan began playing in the waves,running to and fro and his laughter was so easy and infectious we were soon all having a blast as I snapped away.

I love this video!

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/327280/

Bad Movie

After I watched “The Legend” I had to restrain myself from lobbing the DVD out the back door into the lake………because it might hurt a fish. Ack! What a meaningless,dark,violent waste of celluloid……. and my money. I keep saying I’ll never buy any more DVD’s sight unseen anymore and I won’t anymore.I guess I’ll join Netflix or wait for them to hit cable. I never thought Will Smith would be in such a bad movie.

Job search continued

Well……….I’ve been looking and the only jobs posted are 12 hour shifts at the local hospital. I have a hard time doing 12 hour shifts anymore and hospitals won’t use 8 hour shifts because they are more expensive. So the hospitals are saying they can’t find nurses to work there that “the well is dry” but they will not accomodate the older nurses(by this I mean over 40 which is the median age by the way) by having shorter shifts or even reasonable work weeks. I only work 3 day weeks but at the last hospital I worked at they put nearly all my days together making me work 5 out of 6 days. I’m sorry but I just cannot work a schedule like that. I will happily show up rested and vigorous if I just work 2,occasionally 3 then off 2.They can’t be bothered and therefore can’t find enough help. Maybe the hospital administration should try to “bother” accomodating the nurses a little. Maybe the CEO,CNO etc could come down on their $250,000 yearly salary so their hospital could be staffed.   Ya think?

Catching fish in the backyard

Jim and Ethan

Moving pt 2

Wow,still resting from moving part 2. The movers were supposed to show up early on the 21st,they call to say they’ll be there at 1pm then they limp in around 1:30pm with nearly a full truck and three totally exhausted movers.They took one look at my folks 2/2 w/ full garage and looked like they were going to cry,we nearly cried too when we realized we couldn’t move my folks that day.So it was quite a let down to set them up and make sure they had everything they needed for 2 more days.

     So the movers say we’ll set up a time and show up being and early,fresh and rested with an empty truck,well………one outta three ain’t bad(it is actually).They show up  4 1/2 hours late with no explanation other than it took longer……..or something(they’d already been there 2 days earlier!).They look at me with dread and ask repeatedly”Is this going?”I say “yes,everything is”(patiently at first),then “YES!! It’s all going!!!!” I felt bad for them but that’s why I hired three of them so they could work together and it wouldn’t be so hard. Sheesh!

Anyway,my folks are here and established now,I put safety equipment in their bathroom;a raised seat,a shower chair,mats or rugs over tile floor,etc. anything I could think of. My mom now has a walk in closet that is bigger than the bathroom we had in our original house and the master suite is probably bigger than their entire first house.

  My nephew and his son went fishing in the lake behind the house,it’s huge and apparently has a lot of catfish which is good for catch and release training for his son.My mom put it aptly when she said”it’s nice to have a full house”.

It is.

Relevant Quotes

“It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job,it’s a depression when you lose yours”

Harry S. Truman

“Be careful about reading health books,you may die of a misprint”

Mark Twain

“If you’re going through hell keep going”

Winston Churchill

“Black holes are where God divided by zero”

Steven Wright

“A computer once beat me at chess,but it was no match for me at kickboxing”

Emo Philips