Rant #3,431: Wonderful World

Yesterday was kind of a strange day for me--

Super busy in the morning, super slow in the afternoon.

In the morning, before I went to the doctor for blood work, I was on the phone for about an hour trying to clean up a bit of a mess that my son is going through related to his Medicaid.

I have called his supposed Medicaid counselor several times, but my calls have not been returned.

I spoke with another one of his counselors, and I was told to keep on calling.

A total waste of time.

Then I went to the doctor, told I was in good health, gave blood, made a few more future appointments ...

I was told that the blood work will be used to see if my prostate numbers are good, and I was told that they had risen, but were actually OK, the last time.

Then why was I told to take all.of the tests I went through, and were supposed to go through--but had to postpone when my car was supposedly stolen?

I never received much of an answer.

Why go through needless procedures that, thank God, I evidently don't need?

Let's see how my numbers are ... as I said when my car was towed, God works in strange ways.

I came home after my doctor's appointment, did what work I had to do, and then--

Nothing.

It is kind of unusual for me to have no writing and/or editing to do on  Monday, but that is how it was yesterday.

So I took advantage of the day, doing all.of that digitizing of records that I wanted to do--

And although it took me nearly three hours to do it all, it was relaxing and a lot of fun.

I guess that is how retirement is supposed to be, but that thing with my son's Medicaid is concerning me to no end--

Especially when I can't get anyone on the phone to speak to me.

I cannot tell you the countless hours I have spent--and wasted--making phone calls to a variety of government agencies during the past nearly five years of unemployment/inactivity/supposed retirement.

There were days I literally wasted, in entirety, making phone calls to these agencies, and to other entities that I needed to to get things in my family's lives on the straight and narrow.

But I often found that to get to the straight and narrow, you have to get through lots of zigs and zags.

And I have also, unfortunately, learned the bard way that you have to be able to convincingly say, "If you do not do what I am asking you to do, I will sue you."

People jump when you say that.

I hate to pull out that "rabbit in my hat," but if I have to, I have to.

Even the stupidest, most ignorant people I have dealt with during the past five years unsderstand what that means.

And when I waste all.of this time on the phone, yes, I do continue to wonder what retirement is.

That is why yesterday, at least for a few hours, I actually had some fun.

I haven't had much fun the past nearly five years, so I really enjoyed it--

Realizing that today is another day, and I might not have that experience again for a long, long time.

And as I end this Rant, let me say an "R.I.P." to one of our great actors James Earl Jones, who passed away at age 93.

He was popular and prolific, and I will always best remember him in "Field of Dreams" as Terence Mann.

And what a voice! To think that as a child, he stuttered so badly ... incredible.

One of the true greats ... he will certainly be missed--

As will Ed Kranepool, one of the New York Mets whose career spanned generations, who died at age 79. 

I was not a Mets fan, but this guy stood out as a decent baseball player and an even better representative of the national pastime.

He was at a few of the Rochdale Village Athletic League award breakfasts that we had in those early days of my old community of Rochdale Village.

He and temmate Ron Swoboda attended those breakfasts, so I am sure that I shook hands with both of them.

Funny how baseball runs through both Jones and Kranepool.

Maybe they will run into each other on the basepaths in heaven.

Rant #3,430: There's a Kind of Hush (All Over the World)

Let's get this out of the way first.

The unveiling ceremony for my mother's gravestone will be held Sunday, September 22.

We are just going to have a small gathering there, mainly family, and the ceremony will be a short one.

We aren't having anything afterwards, and I think that it will be a good, short and to-the-point end-point for my mom and her wonderful legacy on our family.

That was really the big news of the weekend, a fairly relaxing one before the work week starts up again today.

I watched a lot of baseball, watched a pay-per-view wrestling show with my son--it went on for six hours, and yes, I conked out with about 90 minutes left to go--and I had a few good nights' sleep.

Today, we get back to the week's business, including some medical stuff.

I am slated to take another blood test, and I hope all my levels are where they should be.

I have taken so many blood tests in my life that I almost feel like a pin cushion.

Couple that with the allergy shots that I received on Saturday, and the poking just continues unabated.

It is all for my continued good health, so I can't really argue with any of this.

My left leg is what it is, and my right leg still bothers me, but not as bad as it has been during the past couple of weeks or so.

I have a few more physical therapy appointments before I am done in October, and then it is up to me to continue my exercise regimen, so that my legs can be as strong as possible.

I have to say that I am doing pretty well, overall, as we move from summer to the fall.

I think my body likes the cooler temperatures, in particular in the evening.

I can't take the heat at all, and when it was in the 90s, I just wasn't sleeping very well.

Now, things are better in that regard.

And to round out this past weekend, I did some digitizing with my records, focusing on my Herman's Hermits collection.

I thought I digitized all of their singles over the years, but I recently found some holes in those digital files, so I started to fill in those gaps this weekend.

I am not done yet, so if I get some time, maybe I can finish it all up.

So the past weekend was pretty quiet, other than that unveiling announcement.

Kind of just the way I like it.

Now, the work week is in front of me ... and everything that goes with it--

Enough for me to be already looking forward to the next weekend.

It can't come too fast.

Rant #3,429: I Love You

As I had predicted, yesterday was about as busy a day as I have had in a long time.

I had to cover that conference I mentioned about to you, and I not only had to write it up and send it in, but I had three other work-oriented things to do, two of which I finished and at 7:30 p.m., I decided to hold off doing the last one until this morning.

There was also a Social Services matter that came out of the blue, and while I called transporting my son back and forth to work, I never connected with anyone there--so I will have to try again a little later today.

I also had physical therapy, and my body hurt from head to toe.

I am sort of between two anniversaries that I wish didn't exist--one of the passing of my mother on September 5 and the other, of the passing of my father on September 7.

Since I don't have time to do much of anything today--I have to pick up on the work I missed yesterday and do all my normal chores--I thought I would keep today's Rant very short and to the point.

My sister and I had the absolute greatest parents in the world.

We could not have chosen better parents if we were given the opportunity to do so.

They were both in their 20s when they had us, so I think the youthful verve that they had really rubbed off on us.

We were always busy, always doing something, and when you are always busy, you seem to stay young forever.

They both worked hard, and they enjoyed their later years, being grandparents of four boys and one girl--while still looking over my sister and I as our parents.

They loved the spouses of my sister and I, and they loved being the elder statesmen of our small family.

Then--and it seemed to happen almost out of nowhere--they got sick, or more to the point, unwell.

They had a variety if ailments as they went into their 80s, including dementia--

But they both still had their presence of mind, to a certain respect, until the days they died.

When they saw their children and grandchildren, they became young again.

Their final days were not good ones, but they left a legacy within our family--and to others who knew them and loved them--that will be passed down to the next generation, if there is one.

No great grandchildren are imminent, but if they do eventually come, you can bet they will know everything there is to know about Grandma and Zaidey.

As I go into this sad period, I cannot be unhappy.

How can I be that way with the parents I had?

They were great people, and my sister and I were their kids.

Other than wishing they were still with us, what do I have to be unhappy about?

We have memories that you cannot put a price on, and I hope my sister and I made them proud.

I love you, mom and dad.

Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #3,428: School Days

School ...

All the public schools open this week if they haven't already opened.

And the colleges and universities are also opening, so our academic landscape is pretty much in full swing for the 2024-2025 school year.

And here comes the problems.

Where the beginning of the school year used to be a relatively happy time--at least for parents--it now signifies the beginning of protest season--

And how will colleges, universities, and yes, even some public schools, handle the coming of the Hamas groupies?

They had better do a better job than they did last school year.

Students and their sympathizers--including instructors and professors--took over campuses, spouting their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric, intimidating not just Jewish students, but all students, who were there for the right reason--to be educated.

But the wrath was mainly directed at Jewish students, who had to bear the hatred of these groupies while administrators sat with their hands folded and did little or next to nothing to quell these disturbances.

On Tuesday, Columbia University had its first protests, and a campus statue was defaced. Two of the Hamas groupies were arrested.

Around the country, there have been other altercations, and more arrests.

Of course, these Hamas groupies ignore the reality of the situation, and what made these recent protests even more wretched was thst they came a few days after it was announced that six Israeli hostages--including one with American citizenship--had been murdered by Hamas terrorists.

One Columbia student who was interviewed by the local press here said that the atmosphere at the school was horrid, as anybody entering the campus had to go through a gauntlet of security simply to get on the campus.

"This is not the way to protest," the student said, adding that you are not getting your points across by upending the university.

I am not saying that protests should not be permitted.

But what is going on at many college campuses are NOT protests; they are vicious pep rallies supporting terrorists and targeting Jewish students on campus.

Vicious language, barbarian behavior, and destruction are part of the plan, and it is very intimidating.

It is also very wrong, period.

But these schools simply have no idea how to handle these uproars, which are fueled by people who generally get their news off of Tik Tok.

They are completely uninformed, but what they do know what to do is create anarchy on campus.

It has got to stop, and if there is blood on anyone's hands here, it is on the hands of college administrators, who haven't a clue about how to run what is supposed to be an educational institution.

Shame on them, shame on the Hamas groupies, shame on the biased press, and shame on all of us for letting this hatred and anti-social behavior simmer to this boiling point.

(And now we have the new school.year's first mass shooting, in Georgia. Another story for another time.)

And who used to prepare me for school, waking me up, making my lunch and helping me get ready for my and my sister's school day?

My mother, of course.

My mom passed away a year ago today.

She was a great mother, was always in our corner when we needed her, and she loved our father to pieces.

I miss her greatly, and I hope she is with my father now, having a good time in heaven.

So as the school year begins, and every year that the school year begins into perpetuity, I will think about my mother.

She did a GREAT job, and my sister and I couldn't have chosen a better mom--and dad--on our own.

So today is a bit of a sad day for me, but then I think of everything my mother did for me, and even through the sadness, I have to smile, at least a little bit.

Rant #3,427: Gimme Dat Ding

Related to yesterday's Rant, the pain continued for another day, and only recently subsided.

Late yesterday, I was finally paid by my place of work for the month of August.

But getting my money was not easy.

As I told you yesterday, the president of the association I work for just so happened to ask me if I could cover a conference on Thursday, and I said I would ...

But with the caveat that I had to be paid first before I would fully commit to cover this meeting.

Well, I heard absolutely nothing about being paid for several hours after that.

Finally, as I was finishing up my physical therapy appointment, as my legs were being iced, I decided to do something about this.

Again, I contacted the comptroller for the company, the employee who I always send my monthly invoices to, and explained, nicely, that I need to be paid, that my pay is supposed to be in my account on the first of the month, I have to pay rent, etc.

I sent out this email a little bit after 12 noon as my legs continued to be iced.

A little later, I received a return email from the comptroller.

He said that I would be paid today, and that the reason I was not paid was that my invoice could not be processed because it was sent in too late on Friday.

I knew that that explanation was a bunch of hooey, but for fun, I checked when I sent in the imvoice email.

I sent it out at exactly 8:13 a.m. ... using their inane explanation, I guess I should have sent it out at 4 a.m. in the morning, early enough so it could be processed.

And I let them know in a subsequent email that I sent out my monthly invoice pretty early indeed.

Of course their explanation is utter nonsense, they simply forgot to, or neglected to, send me my pay, and their explanation was beyond lame, especially since I actually had to ask them where my pay was.

This whole thing threw me for a loop, especially since it has happened several times before--

And what's worse, there is absolutely, completely and totally nothing I can do about it.

Many remote workers are considered/treated as second- or perhaps even third-class workers, and that is the way it is, whether anyone likes it or not, or whether that assessment is fair or not.

I think that I finally was paid late on Tuesday because of my second email alerting them to the time I actually sent my invoice in.

Maybe it set a fire under someone's tuckis about how lame--and wrong--their explanation was--

And it proves, once again, that if something has gone awry, you must open up your mouth--or in my case, voice your dissatisfaction in an email--or you simply will not get heard.

But the indignity of me having to bring this up to them--and their extremely lame tale about why i was not paid--simply leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth.

This is all compounded by my having to cover this meeting on Thursday, a write-up that takes time to do and completely kills my day.

The president of the association obviously saw my return message to him, yet nothing was done to make everything right until late in the day, leaving me needlessly simmering for hours.

Again, I had to contact the association and ask for my pay, which is totally embarrassing.

And it isn't like it hasn't happened before.

Yes, I wish I really could be fully retired, and not have to worry about such nonsense, but that simply isn't the case.

I envy those who can really, fully retire and do exactly what they want to do after decades of hard work.

That scenario will clearly never be one that I will experience, that's for sure.

I am happy that this story had a happy ending, but I know that this probably won't be the last time I have to ask for my pay, money that I earned fair and square.

This is retirement?

It can't be, it just can't be--

But it is, at least for me.

Rant #3,426: Money Honey

I hope you had a great Labor Day, a holiday where we celebrate workers' contributions to our society.

And being that as it is, that celebration evidently does not extend to me, or many other remote workers.

With the advent of COVID just about four years ago, many companies were pretty much forced to go the remote route for at least some of their employees, if for no other reason than to keep themselves solvent.

The scourge was at its height, so many people had it, there was no vaccine to at least mitigate it, and people confined themselves to their homes so as not to spread the disease.

This created something of a new facet of our workforce, those who used modern technology to keep their jobs and get work done.

Although the scourge has kind of faded--we have a vaccine and many of us have been innoculated--the need for remote workers might have lessened, but it remains a valued part of the workforce.

Me, I won't go into, for the 100th time, the whys and wherefores of why I found myself as a remote worker, but I have found that it has good and bad points, with pretty much the good canceling out the bad and the bad canceling out the good.

So it's a wash, at least for me.

But the fact remains that remote workers simply do not get treated as other workers do.

Let me count the ways ...

I am still waiting for my August work pay. This is not the first time this has happened to me, and based on past history, it will not be the last.

I know it was holiday weekend, but I sent in my invoice early Friday morning. It should have been processed, since I am supposed to be paid the first of every month.

Rent is due on the first of the month. Happily, I can cover that with my finances at hand, but not being paid on time makes things more difficult.

I have brought this fact up to my employer in the past, but evidently to no avail.

Hopefully, I will get my money today, but having to remind them of this transgression on their point is embarrassing, and I should not have to go through this--ever.

Add to this nonsense is that not even a half hour ago, the president of the c9mpany I work for asked me if I coukd cover a conference on Thursday.

I don't think he knows that I haven't been paid yet, but I replied to his request as follows:

"I can cover it, but i have to get paid for my work in August before I commit to anything.

I don't know any nicer way to say it."

And I don't.

(I have also not had a raise in four years, but that is another story for another time.)

I am going to repeat something I have said here about 1,000 times, and I might say it 1,000 times more.

What I have been going through since I lost my job nearly five years ago cannot possibly be what retirement is all about.

Although I am officially considered to be retired by the federal government, I have never actually retired--

And I probably never will.

What I have gone through the past several years cannot possibly be what retirement is all about.

I have been a guest at a couple of retirement parties in recent times, and those people will have real retirements, where they made their own decision to retire, and can slow down a bit and take it all in after decades of hard work.

They deserve it!

Me, I got "bubkis" after decades of hard work, and unlike Superman, I cannot make coal into diamonds.

My "retirement" has been completely non-existent, and will continue in that direction, certainly for the foreseeable future.

And this latest transgression on the part of my employer simply makes the total, complete negative that I have been through even more toxic.

This simply cannot be what retirement is all about.

I don't know what retirement is, and at this point, I may never know.

Rant #3,425: The Way It Is

Happy Labor Day!

My family and I might go out to dinner later today, but that is pretty much it.

We can't barbecue anymore, so this is what we are left with.

We are entering a little bit of a rough period for my family now, so this is a period of subdued remembrance for us, and not a lot else.

My father died on Labor Day 2020, which was on September 7 of that year, so Labor Day--whenever it is each year--will always be a bit of a somber day for my family and I from here on in.

The holiday is five days earlier on the calendar than it was four years ago, so we will have a nice dinner, but I know my father will be on my mind.

And on September 5, it will be one year since my mother passed, so again, that will be a bit of a somber day for us.

And next month, it will.mark the fifth anniversary of me losing my job--

But let's not push it ... the Jewish High Holy Days are also coming up, so I would like to take it a little slower ... as is the anniversary of my first injury--

These are.things I would like to put off thinking about until they actually come.

And you know what came in the mail on Saturday?

My handicapped parking space permit!

As I have said, I do not feel handicapped in the least, but when push comes to shove, if I cannot find a "Visitors" space in my housing development even though dozens of spots are unused, well, I will simply have to use thst pass to park in a handicapped spot.

I am not going to be the least bit vindictive about it.

I will first look for a "Visitors" spot, where I park 99 percent of the time to begin with.

But if I drive from one end of the development to the other--and back again--and there are no.open "Visitors" spots, then I will park.in the handicapped spot.

As I described to you last week, I simply will not have a choice.

I have spoken to.the Suffolk County Police and a lawyer friend who is very knowledgeable on disability cases, and they both agree that I cannot get towed for parking "iegally" in a handicapped parking spot, as long as the pass is visible in my car's front window.

Sorry, I was pushed into getting this pass, because as a resident of this development, I should not have to worry, each time I leave the premises and then come back, and can't find a space--even though there are dozens of empty spaces.

Since managment agrees with me but has no clue how to rectify this predicament, well, sometimes, you have to.do what you have to do.

I was pretty amazed that I received the permit so quickly, but now that I have it, I will use it--but only when necessary.

That is the way it is.

Have a nice holiday.