Massive Fail

It is 4.5 miles from the gym to my house. It took me 50 minutes to drive that today. The key word there being drive which, of course, I was not able to do much of. It was horrible. And, for no reason. There's a blog that keeps up with the traffic between here and there and keeps the Department of Transportation on their toes about it so when I got home I checked the blog. Lots of folks had already chimed in. And, apparently, it was pretty much bumper to bumper from 6:45 right through til about 9:30.

So I think the only solution for me is to just go swim whenever I want to and know that coming home will be a long and tedious journey. I will make sure I have podcasts loaded in the chamber and no where I have to be at a certain time. I could even pack a thermos of coffee and a bagel.

It's just not worth stressing over. Next year, the gym in the next block with the lap pool will open and I can leave all this behind me.

The house cleaner is supposed to be here today. But no sign of her so far. Maybe she's in her own traffic nightmare. Suits me. I'm not mentally ready for her anyway.

I had planned to walk up to the new Bartell's Drug Store today while she cleaned but, I learned via Twitter last night that it does not open until Saturday. Guess that will be Saturday's adventure.

I did put a load of laundry in before I left for the pool and it's in the dryer now.

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House cleaner arrived so this entry was interrupted by that. She brought me grilled skewed chicken over homemade pasta. For Christmas last year she gave me 'a meal every time I come' and so far it's been pretty cool. Today's looks very delicious.

The mortgage check finally cleared. The upside of having the bank send the check is that now the canceled check is digitally attached to my account and it was fun to see. I over paid and paid before the date promised so I'll be getting $1,200 back probably next month. And I will still have a nice little deduction for next year's taxes but then I'm done. I can say buh bye to CitiMortgage forever. Very nice.

My tweets

• Wed, 11:01: Way too early in the season for candy corn to get drunk and… https://t.co/J00uMfjbSa https://t.co/pW6EwLit9h

Retirement life is like a game of whack a mole

About 2 hours after I got official info that my mortgage was, indeed, now fully paid off, I got a letter from my doctor's office that I have to find another insurance company for next year. phuckety fuck.

I have not been thrilled with my current insurance which I changed to last October but we have finally come to a truce and I like them now and now they want a divorce. phuckety fuck.

Fortunately, I live in a larger city in a larger county which offers old people a fairly large variety of insurance options. AND I know exactly what's important to me and what to look out for.

AND my doctor is part of a very very large clinic which also offers excellent customer support to old people like me who have insurance questions. In fact their website alone has pretty much all the info I need. Or it will when the looking starts on October 5. The sign up starts October 15.


More name thoughts.

I was a first born. My parents picked out names for a girl and names for a boy. (This is how you did it in pre is-that-a-penis? sonogram days.) The girls names were Linda and Susan. But they had an old dog named Linda. They were hoping she'd die before I was born but, alas, she held on so I got Susan. My brother's name was Patricia prior to his birth when it got changed to Bill.

Many many many parents at that time named their baby girls Susan. In every elementary grade at school, I had never less than 3 and sometimes as many as 5 Susans in a class of 30ish kids. So we were more likely to get nicknames. In fact the woman who sent me the email that started this whole thought train is named Susan but always called Pixie.

Having a distinctly gendered name has always had its ups and downs but the years in which I've lived have offered me several nice opportunities to exploit it. In the mid 70's I decided I wanted to go into sales. The federal government was pressing corporations to hire women. A resume of a college graduate who was clearly penis free got a lot of attention. I spent about 8 months just flying around the country interview for jobs with different companies on their dime. It was massively cool.

Then, in the decade from mid 80's to mid 90's I fell in love with computers and didn't know jack shit about them. And didn't really want to go back to school to learn. So I found Electronic Bulletin Board Systems (EBBS) where I always signed up for the 'handle' Susan, which, interestingly, was never already taken. I found a world of geeky teenaged boys who were THRILLED to talk - even electronically - with a human named Susan who very probably was actually female. I make fun of them but, honestly, they were so patient and so kind and taught me so much that I was able to build a second career on the stuff I learned because my name was Susan.

And, finally...

Since I don't have a Facebook account, and my whole name has changed several times, even though 99.9% of everything I post, add, contribute to the internet is 100% public and under the name susandennis, people from my past generally do not find me. It occurred to me today that yesterday's post will give Google some info it's never had before. My days of passive aggressive hiding are probably over. It will be interesting to see.

My house is so clean.

Both thees dolls are from Goodwill pillowcases.





A while back, I rescued this very ugly cat brush thing from the free shelf in the garage. My intent was to show it to Zoey and then, assuming she'd tire of it quickly, take it back to the free shelf. Well, she's hell bent on proving me wrong. Now, six weeks later, it's still her go to spot. And now, in addition to its just generally tacky, cheap looking construction, it's also full of black cat hair. Sigh.