Gift basket delivery to the rescue

I had to force myself to make the call to get sis something.  I forced myself to send bro and wife and his stepson and DiL  as well and did not send as much this year as in years past other than last year when I just didn't get anything sent to anybody.   Bro will get a big sum of cash when the farmland sale goes through and his son and DiL are acting like spoiled heirs, but bro or his wife did send me an Omaha steak box.   I think son and DiL are on a course to hit a brick wall around age 50-60 even if they end up with most of the $ from the farmland since there is not a family fortune.   But whatever,  that is not my circus.  I don't know why I felt so meh on getting something for sis,  she has spent quite a bit of time here the last couple years so I good have a break from dad care, then seeing him, and helping me sort out some of the estate crap. 

Argghhhhh stupid president Tony

 Couple weeks ago we get a complete surprise email that they are rescinding remote work unless you were hired as a remote.  Everyone that chose to remain remote after they shut down for 2 years for covid panic must start coming to office 3 days/week starting in April 2025 and if you are more then 50 miles from the office you have till Aug 2026.   So I do some thinking and "gee I don't want to go through pain of moving and job goes away in 1.5 years, I will just try to make things work better for myself here" 

They got a bunch of pushback, now it is July 1st to start coming to office 3x/week AND if you live more than 50 miles away it is Aug 2027.    It probably is still not worth moving, but 2027 would put me with 2.4 years gap of insurance before I can get medicare and with COBRA it might not be horrible to do that.   I suppose they might well say "you had to be living more than 50 miles away before we announced this to qualify."    It just sucks that I made a decision based on their initial timeline.  That decision is not carved in stone, but time's a wasting if I would want to pursue moving.  

I am just not feeling it today

 I was bored inside and the wind had decreased so I went outside and grabbed a few tumbleweeds that had blown up against my driveway gate and crammed them into the burn barrel, it was still breezy enough that I opted not to burn them.   Then decided I need to force myself to set up the tree so I dragged everything in from the shed.   Took the head off the apple picker that the handle broke on last week.   I had the notion that I might replace the handle but we don't have any handle that length laying around and the metal tines have never worked great.   So I will burn the broken handle and the head goes into the metal scrap pile, which I should at least move from in front of the house.  I should just run to the recycle place, they'd probably let me drop my bit of scrap iron/steel off even though it is not enough to weigh.  

I should address several more cards and write short notes and the boss wants me to special process a dataset.  He wanted it last week but I told him I could not get to it.  

Finally some action on insurance

 I went to Strong Insurance company.   The agent there said it was very hard for him to get any company to write a farm policy and what I had was pretty good.   So I paid up on the farm policy in dad's name and then that agents office called me.  So I think I will get a policy with my name on it soon.

I tried emailing the BCD dumpster outfit.  No response so I guess I have to suck it up and leave a voice mail.   If still no response from them I will have to text to neighbors asking who they use.   Sigh,  I hate it when it is hard to become a customer with some outfit.   I always feel like "sheesh, I am wanting to give you money for a service, why don't you want it?"   I suppose that mostly happens when I'm dealing with some employee not the owner and the employee does not want more work for their probably fixed pay.

I need need need to call my vet's office and request he call or come out for consult on Tanza.

I wrote up a short xmas letter.  Now I need to dig out some cards and write out addresses and short notes. 

I rode Taj today.  I wanted to ride Sadie but Toby was out, not pestering her hard cuz I had his collar on, and she was all "can't catch me" and Taj was running the fence as she was doing that so I just rode him.  I shouldn't let Sadie off the hook, but Taj needs exercised.  He is in great weight but I should make it more of a point to get him out more often, regular work is best for keeping older horses sound.  

Phone calls update

 I did call the Strong Insurance agency.   They don't do appointments,  just drop in so I should drive to town Monday and talk with them.   

Still need to make appts with Dentist and HMO

Need to call my vet to discuss what to do with Tanza in light of the sesamoid x-ray.  Does he want me to get a stifle ultrasound to rule out two problems?   Does he think the sesamoid is treatable?  

I dialed the BCR company but got no answer so I need to email and or call them again.  I really want to get a dumpster out here and get to it with tossing stuff, selling the old horse trailer etc

Need to text Paul about my p/u.   Is his friend that is the 6.3 liter guru just busy or having health issues?  If busy I could get pickup hauled to friends place so it is there and he doesn't have to find time to drive clear out here,  if health issues maybe I need to find a repair place to work on it.

I did ride Taj yesterday.  He got himself all sweaty and my arms were tired after just the 3 miles even though I was trying to avoid constantly pulling on him.   But he was not horrible,  a couple of nickers and wanting to rush a bit but not a big meltdown.  

B was out and we cleaned pens and I made hamburgers and a box Mac and cheese.   Did get the stuff cooked but it was mess cuz I only pulled the burgers out at 10 this morning, and I thought they'd thaw in the cooler bag.  I should have put them in water right away since I didn't put them in the fridge last night or sooner.   But I got some separated and cooked up.   B had to leave early to help another of her friends pack, he is moving across country.  I scraped a bit more muck off in a few spots after she left and managed to get several bucket loads of sand hauled to fill in the low spots so they won't get soggy so fast without getting the tractor stuck.   I put Tanza in with Lady so he wouldn't overdo and also did not let the other horses out to big pasture.   It worked, Tanza did come loping a few strides when I brought Lady's grain,  hopefully not enough to aggravate anything.   I didn't get Surpass on him last night, so him being better tonight has me wondering if the Surpass is actually making him more sore.   If it makes him feel sore but fights the inflammation I should make a point to put it on every day.  

shock news from work. I will have to go to office 3 days/week

At least it is not a layoff announcement.    I will have to do a proper pro/con write up.

Initially I thought I was not affected since I'm remote, not hybrid at present but in the 'fine print' since I was not remote before covid I will be forced to go to hybrid and be in office 3 days/week.  

pro:   I have been in a barn sour rut and don't even like to run into the close town for errands.   This would get me out of the house and then it will be "I might as well swing by bank to get cash, swing by Safeway etc.

pro:  I've gotten into a mode of not wanting to make a meal to eat.  So I'd have cafeteria 3days/week and/or might as well buy frozen entrees to heat and eat at desk and this might get me back to healthier eating. 

pro or con?    I would need to get a housemate, maybe a couple to cover evening feeding on office days.  I really like having Jarod's help, this is way too much house and place for just one person anyway, but I will have to find someone longer term pretty quickly when his employer is finished with the work in this area. 

 Employees more than 50 miles from office have until Aug 2026 to start coming to office  but do not get an exception to stay remote past then so moving out of state and working remotely will not be an option unless I could quit but my group could go through an agency to hire me as a contractor.  So if contractor is no go I'd have to retire before I'm 62 or find a new job at age 61.  How would I handle medical insurance?  I've been on the fence wrt to moving.   I hate paying taxes to this state that has gone so commiecrat,  but moving is a huge change, could I make the needed connections to be able to manage things like vehicle repairs, getting a place ready for horses, house repairs as needed etc in a brand new place?  Could I find a housemate if I move somewhere more remote, or even find someone to cover chores so I could leave for a few days to go ride or whatever. 

Need to make a bunch of calls this coming week

Maybe if I list em here it will nudge me to be more proactive.

0.  Should call L and M and J about meeting to ride cuz I should get Taj out. 

1.  811? (again).   They emailed me that I am clear for any century 21 internet lines.   I wanted to get the power lines flagged but I do know roughly  where that is so I may not bother with it.

2. Strong Insurance agency.   I really do need to find a new ins. company.

3. CSU.   I think I will try the shockwave for Tanya's sesamoid bones.   Internet searching it does not seem too positive for him to be fully sound sigh.   I need to ping Dr Mike for his advice.

4. Dentist

5. schedule mammogram and blood tests at Kaiser. 

Ugh, will I ever catch up?

Stupid question.  Two days after I have tackled one problem area in the house or yard my mind starts seeing other issues.   There is a lot I really should do, but I could get all of it done and my do list would just expand.   I am still very torn on "get out of this god forsaking state ASAP" vs "maybe I should just stay where I am, moving would likely make all that much more work." 

But I'm feeling like the outsider in the neighborhood again and it sucks.  I try pretty hard to be a decent neighbor and I'm tired of feeling like I've stepped on someone's toes and wondering what I did wrong. 

Ugh, my pickup won't start today

 I may have to get it towed someplace to get fixed.  I need to text Paul tomorrow, possibly he can look at it.  I think he may have quit his job, he was around this week.  My luck he just took a week off to do stuff and will be super busy; but I don't need for him to fix the pickup.  I can pay a bit extra to have it towed somewhere, but I hate to just randomly pick some place.    I need to figure out if I need to buy a new to me used truck, not being able to count on just hopping in the truck to go somewhere sucks.  

I keep punting on running to town to pick up a few things

I think I need to not move unless I connect with someone.  I can barely manage getting vehicles in to be serviced and whatnot here.   I can't be out in the country in a rural state like Wyoming unless I've moved next door to a buddy and we will help each other out with such things.   

So I need to get over my angst and start trying to find housemates for this place, and I need to call an insurance agent and see if I can't get a decent rate on this house and my vehicles.   I'm done overpaying the current outfit while they keep sending bills to dad after I've told them at least 3 times that he is deceased.

I felt off all day, not full on sick but had a bit of a neck soreness and headache.  I did finally put up my 3rd wire all the way that divides Taj from the other horses.   Razz and Taj and quit crawling through the fence the last several days but I wanted to make sure the neighbor kids shouldn't have to deal with horses in the wrong pen.    Tomorrow I have to get Lady's medicine, the pic with all of us at bros from 2007, cash, horse feed.    I have to figure out where to station feed for Lady and Taj and get that set up too.   I should have done more of that this weekend, but I didn't. 

I did not do a flyer, and it was a very thin group at Dad's memorial.

 But it was nice.   Sis and I went to the hunting area Dad loved to spread his ashes as he had wanted.  It was a pretty good trip.   Big Blue was acting kind of sick.  I have to take it somewhere to get serviced, make sure they change the fuel filter and have them check the injectors, and if they can check the computer,  I think at least part of the issue was the stupid computer for the automatic transmission was trying to run in too high a gear up the hills.  I did make up eastbound Vail pass with using the manual over-ride to run it in 3rd gear instead of letting it try to pick what gear to run in.  

I took both Tanza and Taj up there because Tanza skinned his knee last week and I didn't want to ask the neighbor kids to feed him his antibiotic in grain.  Ended up riding Tanza and leading Taj to start and then swapping to riding Taj when it felt like Tanza was stumbling extra.   I got into the scrub with no clear trail riding Taj and he was a rock star for picking his way through decent spots and being willing to just go through thicker brush when I asked him to.  

I am being so lazy work wise today.   I have to snap out of it and tackle the orbit stuff or the boss may mess up what I think is working pretty decently for the post processing.  

Ugh I think I have a UTI

 I've never had one before.   Yesterday when it hit I thought it was just external irritation like I have had after riding 50s but desitin did not help at all and I was up every 15 minutes to pee an ounce or less for a few hours and it was stinging every time.   Finally I forced myself to drink a good bit of water every time I was up and that gradually helped with less often urges and more volume, got a 2 hr chunk of sleep before I got up this morning. 

Took me 4 or 5 hours to get Lady's pain pills and get myself a phone visit with a KP doc to get a prescription and an order for a lab test and then schlepp to KP to get the prescription and give them a urine sample.  

I didn't contact neighbors about having the kids feed hay so I guess I will give the horses a bunch of hay in the morning and they will live, if the kids do come over I'm sure the horses will appreciate the extra hay.   

Lady is not thrilled with being in with Taj,  he is bossing her away from the food a fair amount but I'm sure he'll relax as he realizes he will always have plenty to eat and he was nice and calm all day instead of whinnying and pacing when he couldn't see Tanza and the other horses.   She will live for a few days until I can put Tanza in there with Taj, and then for a couple days while Tanza is gone for scattering dad's ashes. 

I have not even started on making a flyer with a bit of dad's obit and the time and location for the memorial to put around the neighborhood.   I hope it isn't too tacky to do that but I don't know how many folks get the local paper that might want to come.   I'm afraid it might be a very thin crowd. 

Taj is here

I may regret taking him on the feed lease.    B bugged out as soon as she got her stuff unloaded.  I had told her I had a cold and maybe she is just being cautious with the pregnancy.  Plus she is letting Taj go so it has to be bittersweet for her, even though I am hoping she will be able to ride him some in 2025, joining me and Tanza once her bambino has arrived.  I think M and J would babysit at trailhead while starting happy hour so B could ride.   Or I could haul Taj and she could ride with them while I babysat and then I could ride Tanza solo.   

But I was bummed.  I was hoping me doing this feed lease would lead to engaging more with her and with her riding buddies.   If I cannot manage to engage with B, M and J, the neighborhood folks, or some new close riding buddies it makes zero sense to stay here.  I will put any moving thoughts on hold until after dad's memorial.   I have a fear that hardly anyone will come.  I need to make a little flier and take around the neighborhood.   

I need to call dad's hunting club.   Sending email via their web form has had no response and I would like them to know the memorial date and if they will take me up on the donation offer in his name. 

Taj is not happy being by himself.   I will try throwing Lady in with him tomorrow.   I can't have Tanza yanking his shoe off and I have not got the fence where he could hook his shoe removed.   Plus that would mean Taj getting extra attached to Tanza and then being alone while we we go to scatter dad's ashes.   

In good news,  P towed the Prius to their yard so it will be handy to his tools if he gets a bit of free time to look at it.   Saturday I got dad's wall tent organized together and I took it to K's.   She will use it for her fundraiser and then store it.   Hopefully it works out nicely for her.   It was good she was always too busy with other things to come and get it as I had forgotten that the canvas was in the gooseneck but the poles were in the garden shed. 

I need to try disconnecting the starter battery on the prius

 That is the last thing to try before I have to involve an actual mechanic.  I am so bummed that I bricked the darn thing.   But if I have to junk it that is not going to break me, its just a PITA. 

P.S.  I got a spark trying to get the battery off,  my awesome mechanic neighbor looked at it for me after putting some big squares for his cows in my empty little hay shed.  The folks built a big hay shed so we could just get stacker loads several years ago so that is where my horse hay is.

Neighbor diagnosed it as the blower motor for the hybrid battery is not coming on and the car won't run at all when that blower won't start.  So car might need a new blower,  part is about $200 or there might be short that could take a lot of work to track down.    L and her DH were walking their dogs last night and they are interested in taking the car and he was like "oh I know how to do electrical things on vehicles"  so hopefully they will take the car and it will be easy for him to fix.   

I drove L to her appointment yesterday

 She had asked on the neighborhood text group if anyone could give her a ride and got a few "sorry, I have something going on" replies.   She has told the group she is pregnant.   I suppose I'm the only one she has been comfortable telling me that she is nervous and wondering if she should abort so all the hard core pro life folks may not know that tidbit.  But they know she is liberal and pro-choice, and if they had a bit of ability to read between the lines they'd pick up that she is having a tough time.    I don't know whether to tell them this is their rubber meets the road moment for their beliefs if they want to make sure this fetus is carried to term if there is not a natural mis-carriage or keep my mouth shut.  

I was going to take the Prius and it wouldn't go.   Maybe, maybe the battery was too low to start the gas engine and that is why it crapped out and wouldn't run.  Or the starter is bad or there is a bad fuse for the fuel pump or.   I have the trickle charger on it to test the battery possibility.   If that isn't it I will have to ask P if he can put his reader on it and see what the computer thinks is wrong.    If L is not going to want to take on the insurance and whatnot and make payments I am going to be bummed that I didn't at least call CarMax and ask if they offered a ride service to sellers or might arrange a lyft or uber and I probably could have got someone in the neighborhood to give me a lift.  

I offered dad's big wall tent to a couple folks on the chat that I thought might be interested.  No takers so I will have to list it on CL and or FB marketplace.   

B is going to take me up on feed lease for Taj.  I hope she will maybe want to keep riding him some, but she is starting to feel her pregnancy so she might not have any interest in riding until next year.

This is why I only have a few friends.   If I consider someone my friend I feel an obligation to help out if I can, like the ride for L.  Taking Taj is beneficial to me as well as B since I'll have a backup horse for trail-riding that I am familiar with having ridden with B often.   I guess if I had the huge network of friends then it would be easier to only offer to help for stuff that was easy.  I don't know. 

I need to put out there for a housemate, maybe a couple.   Rent on anything is crazy around here so it might be a great deal for someone.  I'm nervous to just advertise but if I demanded references it would probably be okay.  

Offered to feed lease B's horse

 I've always liked Taj.   I'm a bit hurt that she didn't even consider asking me if I might be interested.   I only found out she was looking to sell or rehome him by seeing her post to MRER group when I hopped on FB to look at trailers on marketplace to get an idea on pricing dad's trailer.  

She said she liked the idea and needed to think on it.   If she takes me up on it, especially the modified lease and staying more involved with him it will nudge me hard to just stay here.   But if she places him with someone that is another sign that I need to just cut the fraying threads holding me here and finally try to make a place of my own in a sane state. 

Worried about my neighbor

 She hadn't been eating and felt so bad she called 911 on Wednesday.   They told her her liver is in bad shape because she has not been eating and she IS pregnant about 6 weeks.   I don't know what to DO to help her.  I should text some of the ladies group and see if they will organize some visits bearing food.   I can't do a lot but could go over sometimes bringing food, maybe uncooked and ask if she'll help me cook it :P    I have gotten into a state of not wanting to cook myself, but I am still eating plenty,  I just end up eating summer sausage and cheese, or a bagel or something that doesn't require me to cook a meal.  

we are finally getting our OS updates done

It has been a long drawn out process and when I thought we had things licked and were ready to go go go the big boss got cold feet and insisted on a bunch of comparisons with the old OS.   Some issues were found and corrected and some issues were found with old software so it was not quite wasted effort to do the comparisons but I was beginning to feel like he was going to make us fail our mission with the cold feet.  

Now I should push ahead with the new orbit software but I'm having trouble motivating myself both for work stuff and home life.   I'm still fairly paralyzed not knowing whether I just need to make a push to get to know people and get roommates and stay here or make a clean break.   I'm scared of moving,  I have a hard enough time networking here.  Moving to a more rural state where there aren't many people might result in me really ending up in a spiral of everything falling apart because of not getting maintained.  But if my great next door neighbors decided to move I'd feel very adrift here AND would be in an idiotic blue state that penalizes success through hard work and turns a blind eye or even abets junkies and thieves. 

summer doldrums

My friend is expecting in January.   I didn't even know she was getting married.  In fact I'm not 100% sure she did marry even after getting on FB to see what I had missed.   She has wanted to be a parent for years, I'm happy for her but also a bit envious that she is realizing her dream and I am treading water trying to avoid going into a serious depression and wondering whether to sell this place and finally 'run away from home' or try to get a housemate or 2 to make being here more enjoyable.   Obviously I am not a close friend.   She is one of my few friends but she is super social and has a huge circle of friends. 

The neighbor and friend that took care of dad and still comes weekly and cleans the floors and counters and does laundry is probably expecting as well.   

And I am just getting through the days and have punted on wrapping up the last bit of settling dad's estate.  Blah. 

Decisions, decisions

 I need to call the hay lady's son in the real estate business and see what he thinks this place might sell for.  

I also need to get an ad somewhere for a roommate and do Farmers Only or something like it.   If I got a great roommate perhaps staying here is the best option.   But I am feeling unloved in the neighborhood.  I'm trying to engage more but I feel like I'm only getting polite acceptance because they all liked dad.  

If I had a partner to help, setting up a new place would feel a lot more doable and I could shake the colorado dust off my sandals when I left.   I feel like the commiecrats will keep the state in a death spiral for my lifetime if not forever.  I'm a bit hesitant to sell because the sibs will probably think they should get a cut if the place did sell for a lot.  But I could give them some money up to the gift tax limit for a year or 3 to keep family peace.  Staying here but not enjoying it just because "the sibs will feel screwed if I sell and get a lot of $"  would be stupid.    

Late P.S.  my big fear with moving is I would be just as lonely and unconnected in a new place, if not more so.  I probably should get on some dating sites and try to connect with someone else who would like to move away from cali lite.  

I feel flat as a pancake today

 The neighborhood ladies were texting about the 4th parade a month ago.   Someone wrote "I miss Carl and his tractor"  Which morphed into "we should have a Carl memorial tractor" which morphed into "lets make it a memorial for all the neighborhood folks, and also pets that died recently.   The night after that was set up I was tossing and turning and went "I don't want to drive dad's tractor as his stand-in for the parade,  I was thinking I'd ride CJ in the parade but since they wanted Carl memorial I had the middle of the night thought to do a riderless horse, but hunting theme and not so somber and spit shined as a military funeral procession.    

So this was the result.    I got myself walking regularly the month before so I'd be fit and took CJ out once, and he led fine so I figured this will work.   UGH,  CJ was channeling RazzMo and Tanza, acting all goosey about the tractors and 4 wheelers with flags.   He finally settled down after a few blocks but I was still having to really hold him to make sure he didn't get ahead of me and circle around me.  But I got him through the parade and back home.   

I don't think a single person in the neighborhood got what I was doing.  The folks at the start just saw a rambunctious horse and if anyone understood the symbolism of the backwards boots and the cap on the saddle horn they never said so to me.  I texted the pics I took of CJ and of the tractor the neighbors decorated to sis and asked if she had gotten in a trail ride late that afternoon.  She had, she sent me a selfie;  NOT one WORD about CJ or the tractor memorial and she got her check from the insurance company that was a PITA to deal with earlier in the week, I got mine as well.  She texted to make sure the split was correct cuz of the extra dividends on it but of course didn't bother to include a "thanks sis"  

I need to be riding Tanza and slowly rehabbing his stifle but I was so exhausted from the parade walk and from people overload attending the potluck.  I brought watermelon and someone else had already set up a huge bowl of nice melon.  I didn't enjoy the food as much as last year.  They may have just boiled the dogs and they had them all in buns so I took one with a crappy hot-dog bun to be polite.   There were deviled eggs and I had some and I had lots of yummy desserts but no one brought tater salad.  Lucky I bought some store stuff last week,  I added some pickles and onions to it today to make it taste more like good tater salad.  

So I'm just feeling tired and deflated today.   

Evening P.S.  I rode Tanza and he was off afterwards not super ouchie ouchie stabbing his toe but landing on the toe  and a bit short stride.  Arghh.  I didn't put surpass on it or anything.  I will see if he is still landing on his toe tomorrow.   If so I guess I need to set up to have his joint injected.   I'm thinking possibly just a  bit of overwork, (or perhaps it was him scooting through the gate when I went into the paddock) won't really set him back but who knows.   Buying another horse doesn't feel wise, but life is so much easier when you can just get a good ride on the weekends and that is their conditioning for distance riding.  Tanza is probably going to need to be ridden 3-4 times week always now.   It might be good for me to be forced to ride that often;  I just don't want to mess up that stifle and have him permanently lame. 

Sigh. I thought T-Rowe would have called me by now.

 I want to just get the stupid estate shit done, and yet I don't feel like messing with stupid BOA and their "notarized small estate affidavit"    Its just a ducking CC, BOA,  if there is some small cash back on it I don't think it is bigger than the balance so you could just take that off the amount due and send me the bill for the remainder.   I should not have to jump through hoops just to do the right thing to settle dad's small amount owed to you.  I know my resentment is way bigger than the actual amount of time getting yet another form notarized and sent off so I need to set aside my grumps and just do it.

I also need to call the stinking insurance company and find out exactly how to proceed with them since they didn't just accept the small estate affidavit and send me a check to then share proceeds with the lazy ass siblings who are doing diddly squat to help me sort out this crap out.   I should just sell this place, the hesitations on my end are all "oh the work of moving, and I'll not know my neighbors"  But it is stupid to stay unless I get a roommate that will work off the rent and or horse board,  I never feel like I have time to go do anything fun.  

And stinking sis on Friday managed to pass putting Dad's obit online to me.   I had a hunch I'd end up having to do it.  Yes I am more set up for that specific thing since it is uploading online but she has done bupkis on anything else to get shit taken care of; she was off having fun at a PBR event when she called me.   MUST BE NICE to be able to just go do things. 

I survived the Jaguar jaunt on Saturday

This was a 5K run to benefit the "Wild Animal Sanctuary"  They are now a zoo and a PAC more than a place that rescues wild animals that had been pets or displays in ragtag private zoos or circuses.  We walked a good bit of the walkway after the 5K walk that wound through their access roads for caring for the critters and found the little plaque from donating in mom's name after she passed away. 

 And I also got through the barbecue and meeing L's father and sibling.   My legs were sore later that afternoon  and my back was a bit unhappy but an ibuprofen in the late afternoon and a generic Aleve before going to bed and I was OK today.

I liked L's mom a lot.   Mom is an L as well, not the same name but same initial and grew up in Nebraska and we chatted quite a lot on the walk, L senior is one of those really nice people that you end up sharing all kinds of life tidbits with because they engage with you and draw you out. 

L's dad:  I guess I'll say I think he fits the salesman persona quite well.  Very charming but seemed like he would say anything to sell his viewpoint.  I don't even know if the selling of insurance to customers was his role but it seemed quite likely.  

L's sibling had to leave early, he was working that evening I guess.   It was very nice of her/him to drive his dad out to L's place for the barbecue so dad didn't have to wait around while the walkers did the walk.  L sr introduced as "this is L's sibling Don/Dawn", verbally both spellings sound alike.   He/she was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and looked like like a slight young man on saturday.   I'm glad I didn't have to process heavy makeup and a frilly hairdo.   It was enough to walk through the house hearing L and her dad talking about Trumps 'conviction' and siding with the CNN take.    

Growing up I never dreamed my country would end up having show trials and political prisoners and it is just surreal to hear everyday people who believe the brazen BS that the FNM wing of the commiecrat party pumps out.  It has to be a huge degree of willful ignorance because they have got to know of many cases where the FNM aired something to support the narrative and then very quietly walked it back later. 

I want to do an empty saddle in the neighborhood parade for dad

 I don't want to be his stand-in driving the tractor.   I will have to ask some folks if they would drive the tractor,  does the group that came up with the idea want to have tractor tow a flatbed trailer 'float' and then the float can have some memorial posters for dad, John, sorely missed pets etc on it.  

That would allow me to rig up the backwards boots in stirrups and have a scabbard if B left me any, find an orange cap or maybe use one of dad's cowboy hats and lead CJ.  Borrowing from the military riderless horse theme.  https://theskeletonkeychronicles.com/2021/05/18/the-riderless-horse/

That would be cool, and not feel like I was just making the neighbors happy.   They all knew dad, they probably thought it eccentric for him to drive his prius to take the dogs on walks but they all saw him and dad being the outgoing friendly guy, many of them had chatted with him often over the years.  I joined the neighborhood group only a couple years ago.   When I was commuting to work I never could have attended their get-togethers, and my phone(s) have limited mass text abilities so I even now I can't fully do the neighborhood chat thing.  I've been lurking and send a reply sometimes to a single person, but I still feel like an outsider to the group.   That is mostly because they are all married, most of them moms, many SAHMs and a good percent are even home-schooling.   Not much overlap with my science nerd, single self. 

Yay, Hay is going into the hay shed today

 I was getting very stressed that I wouldn't be able to get the hay hauler that has a stack retrieval truck this year; when he called on Monday I could commit to the grower to take 4 stacks and did so. 

Now I have an extra stack of hay beyond what I needed to feed the horses here for the next 12-13 months;  so hay wise I can very much get another horse.  I'm still on the fence about getting one.  Money wise I can afford it easily enough, but time wise they all get short changed on care as it is.   It would be really nice to be able to go to rides again.   But maybe I should broaden my vacation horizons instead of getting another 4 legged dependent.   

Stupid estate settling is still frustrating me no end.   I punted on doing anything about it for a full week, but trying to get back on track this week.   Got a check from one ins. company so that is a motivator  to tackle the BS again. 

The neighborhood group had this vague idea of doing a memorial 'Carl's tractor' this year for the neighborhood July 4th parade.   The gal that helped with dad would like to broaden it to include her FIL that passed away in October.   I'm vaguely thinking I could tow a trailer and maybe the neighborhood kids could decorate it as a memorial float.  I could buy poster paper or whatever and they could get  Semper Fi Carl (marine)  and Into the wild blue yonder? John (Air Force)   posters made up and then add flags and streamers and so on.   

Sis wrote an obituary for dad.   I cleaned it up a bit where I thought things did not flow at all.  I'd had a rough idea in mind to come up with something much shorter and pithy to publish and have the longer bit for memorial folders but the legacy.com is a flat rate service rather than by the word and I really don't have energy to write and rewrite to get the short pithy paragraph so I think will call our joint effort good for both things.  

Argghhh. Tanza is the worst patient ever.

 I knew he would be challenging to try to keep him more quiet and let the stifle heal.   Wed night was breezy and a bit of rain when I fed late and Tanza was cantering around.  So last night I tried putting Tanza and Lady in the smaller pen behind the tack shed.    Was not bad overnight, although Lady was grumpy about it.    But today I heard a bunch of whinnying.  Tanza was hot from zooming around in the pen so I stuck him back in with Razz and Sadie.    What is needed for horses is a product that would lessen the inflammation but ENHANCE the pain reception rather than dull it.    

That probably still wouldn't work for idiot Tanza.   He has an insanely high threshold for pain tolerance.

I'm about ready to scream take this job and shove it at the big boss

I should try to be more rational.  He is wanting lots of documentation on the why and how of changes for FISMA audits.  But I feel like he is yanking my chain and refusing to trust that I know what I am doing.  He had burned our organization by green lighting shoddy work with no QC review of the products from the SE IV what thinks he is a genius so I suppose he is being doubly cautious.   But I feel like he is just calling me stupid and I'm not in the mood to go "I'll just prove to him that I'm right"  Much more in the mood of letting him find out if the group can keep its head above water without me.

p.s.  I actually vented about this at a group meeting.   My supervisor was like "oh NO,  big boss is just stalling the nit picky external person plus needing power points for P"  I'm still not thrilled with the way management strokes the egos of a couple of dudes but implies I don't know what I'm doing, but that did help my mood. 

I don't care anymore.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLpfbcXTeo8   Phil Collins has so many great lyrics that resonate with me.  

And this is the non swearing version of how I feel lately.   I'm not thinking "I am quitting this job ASAP"  and I'm trying to still keep taking care of what needs to be done at work.   But with dad having left this mortal coil I DO have in my mind.   "I could sell this metro area priced place and with that and my retirement account I could live just fine with a small house and acreage somewhere where real estate is not so expensive and I would not need to work at all"   So I no longer care if management feels I am doing enough.  I wouldn't care if they eliminated my position.     

And about the same with the siblings.   I could move to WY and develop my property but I'm just not as emotionally close to my sister as I used to be.  Maybe I will check out property in Utah and see what is available that already has stuff done. 

Arghhhh, Capitol One

 They called me today to say there is a 57xx balance on dad's card.  I about had a panic attack.   I think they must have canceled the 58xx payment I made onApril 14 to settle his card as well as the 1xx interest + late fee from it not being paid in March because I had started to pay the full balance and then hit cancel thinking it was fine to just have auto pay pay what was due in March but that apparently canceled the march autopay.    I was being soooo good to pay the card balance off before calling them to cancel the card and they apparently have to make things hard.  

If that is not it I am going to be extremely angry at someone or some entity for a phony charge on the card, but right now I am fairly sure that is it.   And Wells Fargo won't let me get into dad's checking online to see what happened.   I am waiting to close the WF checking until I get the insurance switched to my account but I had figured it would be better to do the title transfers before calling National insurance company.

This after I was so pleasantly surprised by how helpful the life insurance company that could not find dad's policy record when I had called a month ago was this morning.   It is a very old policy that is on its 3rd or 4th company and the account #s don't match exactly and I was going off an older # when I called them before.  

Resentment torments my heart

 I try to fight off resentment but the sibs aint' making it easy lately.   I'm sure it wouldn't ruin their health to send me a few texts letting me know they got their checks and whatever paperwork I sent them. 

yesterday I did nothing but play phone games all day.  I can't do that again,  my back is still unhappy today.   I guess I'll have to suck it up and try to network with people to go riding and stuff.    I'm very barn sour lately.  

I don't absolutely need stuff yet but I should have gotten some things at Walmart today but I could not convince myself to go.   At least I rode my baby loop at home on Tanza this evening.   Good thing I did not delay it.  We had a short rain storm a bit after I put Tanza away and got the mini's fed.  

I schlepped to AT&T to get the DirectTV canceled on Friday.

 I mostly lazed around today.   Sis got me hooked on Zen Word and then I got myself hooked on a tile match game.  I tried several games that looked fun in the ZW ads but weren't my cup of tea but the tile match is rather like the Mahjong solitaire game that was on my work computer decades ago that I really enjoyed.  

I'll have to quit wasting so much time playing the phone games but it was snowy and wet today and I decided getting the thank you cards done was enough.   I did a tiny bit of sorting cards and photos in the downstairs office.   I'm not ready to give all that stuff the BiL treatment.   The gun room does look nice now.   Hardly a gun room anymore now that he and sis took almost all of the  reloading equipment and guns.   I have a thought of offering the Bugle and hunting magazines to the neighborhood folks and blog's gun thread.   I would much rather give them to folks to read than just toss or burn them but I do want to get out from under all those shelf eating magazines.   I need to give away or toss my endurance magazines as well.  I did find I can skip some of the ads on Zen Word, thank goodness, as they have ads every couple of word games. 

I will have to figure out how to hook up the VCR, DVD etc to the TV and maybe buy a universal remote, the directTV one is not playing nicely with the DVD so far. 

Gaah, burning several magazines at once is always so smoky.

 I felt like I needed to burn before sis got here.  LOL,  I am not even burning the magazines that dad has 30 years of.  Just some misc ones.   But I will probably start burning the older ones too unless sis and B take them and they have no shelf space for them.  

More generally I am having to work to quash feelings that sibs and their spouses are being greedy snots.  It is a good thing that B wanted Dad's pickup.  I can probably buy it with a family discount if I need to replace my 350, and I certainly don't need to try to maintain two pickups plus two cars.   But pbbttt to sis thinking I needed to find the title and shit.  She can do that while she is here,  there is no reason I have to do ALL the grunt work for settling the estate after doing the grunt work of getting dad cared for for 18 months.  I PAID mom and dad and then dad a pretty decent rent living here all these years. 

p.s.   Wednesday, day after they left was a bad day for me.  Lots of ugly crying, I was having a mini meltdown, straw that started that was sis not finding a Thank-you card and addressing it to B's boss that sent flowers.  I was sooooo mad at him for not telling his boss to wait and send flowers for dad's memorial in ND,  or even the one we will do here.  What do I want with flowers when there is no gathering of folks to see them?!  But men are clueless, they are doing the best that they can.   

Mostly mad that of course I AM stuck with settling the estate, I know it only makes sense geographical wise but sis managed to dodge almost all of it.  She made ONE call to one insurance agency and sorted out that *I* have to just request it as the estate and send in mom's death certificate as well as dad's as mom was the primary beneficiary.   I knew dad spent plenty of time sorting out mom's insurance polices and retirement account but it all so full of legalese and time consuming to do. 

Going through some of the junk in the downstairs office

 I'm just gathering the low hanging fruit.  Throwing out a bunch of padded and large size envelopes where the labeling to send to us is large and might cause confusion if one tried to ship anything in them.  It's not like I am sending out pictures or glass or anything.  Also picking out old paper envelopes and some old handouts and whatnot of moms to burn when the wind quits.   The goal is to get to point of having the desk area available for doing paperwork.

The wind died down some so I burned a bunch of paper and some magazines.  It was smoking when I went to get Lady's sr pellets.  Stirring got to to burn again.  I'll probably have to keep stirring it a few times.   That is the problem with large amounts of paper, they squish together and don't all burn.

I wasn't hungry earlier but now feel like I need to grab some quick tuna salad before I go out and either ride or just do burn baby burn.  

I should to force myself to go get groceries and cash

 I don't absolutely need to do it today but its too cold and windy for any outside stuff so it would be good to get the shopping done so if it's nicer than expected tomorrow I won't have 'I should run to town' hanging over me at all.

I have to run to the Thornton AT&T on Monday to try and cancel direcTV, so maddening, I went Thursday and the guy at the local store said "you have to go to a corporate store, we are only retail and can't handle death certificates.  So stupid that I can't just cancel the service but I don't have the magic PIN for it and they won't cancel just based on the home address, ph # and SS#s of the parents.   So then I went to Verizon because they were just a block away and getting Verizon home phone service switched from dad to me so that bill won't hit his CC anymore was a two day process because I had a credit freeze.  I'm still like "why do you need to run a credit check?  I'm not financing a 1.5K smart phone I could give you my CC # for the monthly billing" but I suppose they just run the check for everyone.   So I am thinking that I will be way too frustrated on Monday to want to do any shopping after dealing with the TV cancellation even though I'll be driving right through town. 

Cuz I should also make multiple calls on Monday to banks and again to insurance agencies, GRRRRR on how hard it is to get them to send a check after they collected premiums all those years.  Blech,  I know I should be more proactive getting this shit settled but then again dad had no debts and I have no creditors hounding me.   If sis and bro want dough faster they can offer to help.    I want to cancel the TV service before sis arrives so she can't suck me into watching for hours.  I haven't had any desire to turn the TV on the last 2-3 weeks but if it is on past experience shows that I will start watching and get nothing done.   Of course I could fudge a bit and just disconnect the box and say I canceled it already but it will just be easier if I can honestly say I canceled it.  Maybe I should pull the boxes anyway and bring them with me just in case DirecTV wants them back.   

I know its paranoia but I feel like I'm out of the club

 The neighborhood ladies meeting apparently is not happening tonight.  I kind of figured they might skip with Easter having been just this Sunday but they didn't even send out a "we are skipping this month or shifting the meeting to another night or week"  Or if a text was sent at all it was by someone who didn't update their list since I was added or something.  

So I should make myself move and go buy horse feed and a few groceries tonight.  I am having difficulty convincing myself to get up and go.  I was chilled after catching and holding horses for their spring vaccinations but I'm not bad now after some hot tea. 

Or if I don't run the errands until tomorrow I should do work stuff but I feel very blah about it.  The autistic SE is whining about our repeat processing for the one PITB mission again.   I just have to ignore it, we have been doing this for a couple years now and neither the funding agency nor the vendor that provides the data will understand if we suddenly have higher latency or much lower percent of data processed because "we are only going to process a batch of data one time, data that comes in afterwards will be ignored, and we will increase the latency on all processing to try to catch a decent percent of the data"  

Dad's taxes are done, ready to mail the state ones

 I e-filed his fed return and set it as do an e-check to pay.   CO has an $800 credit for sales tax paid this year.   Wow.    I'm going to just donate dads rebate from this credit to the check off charities so I don't have to worry about the refund check when I want to close up his bank accounts.   I must remember to take this credit when I do my taxes.  

ND came out to zero owed.   I am surprised he owed $71 last year but I'm not going to worry about whether HR Block messed up for that small of an amount.   

Mar 31 p.s. 

I must read instructions for both ND and CO to see if I need to include copies of the 1040 form or anything else.   So much BS.   Geithner cheated on his taxes and was approved by the senate as SoT for Obama in 2009 but ordinary people have to worry about the IRS or state treasuries slapping a lien on them if they don't dot every i on the form.   Well not quite that bad.  I have made errors on my 1040 and the IRS just sent me a refund or a notice that I owed more.  No painful audit.  Since I don't itemize there would be little to audit.   They could audit dad's since the property taxes are a deduction but the counties have records of it so even if I lost the paperwork it would be OK.  

I just want to be a lump today but I don't want to get extra behind on things I need and want to get done.  

Lump status: partial.  I did haul out the remnants of my old sleep # type air mattress plus some trash from the feed room, the regular trash and my full bag of hay twine.  And got some tumbleweeds to the burn barrel.  Yesterday was a workout getting the new Tuft and Needle mattress unpacked and on the bed.   I am going to call 1-800 got junk or similar and have the dead freezer hauled away.  Siiigghhh a lot of wasted effort cleaning it up.  A bit of water is getting in there so I don't want to try to use it for feed storage since even a little water plus very little air flow would invite mold and the feed room roof leaks a bit.   Since I need to have the freezer hauled out, I could just get the sleeper sofa hauled out too and I spent a bunch of time yesterday cutting the memory foam topper from my bed to make that sofa comfy.   I'll be calling to have it hauled off sometime in the future when I sell this place and move but who knows when I'll get my ducks aligned to move could be a couple of years or maybe I'll even decide I'm just too old to set up a new place.  

Gaah, I can't focus today

 And I logged into T.Rowe to verify the change to sis as sole beneficiary that I made last year for dad and it DID NOT go through.  ##*#*#*@!  It still shows my dead for over 11 years mom as the primary beneficiary and then all 3 kids as secondary.   Sigh.  I suppose there was some extra step to "confirm you want to do this " that I missed.     

Well I guess since that didn't happen I can 'buy' the tractor and dad's pickup from the estate to give sis more money.   We will most likely have to include a death certificate for mom to get that IRA transferred.   Hmm,  maybe I can ask T.Rowe about ceding my share to sis?   I don't know what to do.   If I decide to move then maybe I don't want to keep 4 vehicles and if sis and B want to sell their half ton and take dad's pickup they can have it once I get the wiring fixed up on my Ford.   For however long I stay here I need a decent tractor,  and it would be most convenient for me to just keep princess Fergie rather than have to buy one.  I do intend to build in WY, possibly rent on an acreage first and expect I'll need a tractor there also.  

Caving an asking sis to change when she comes.  I think she is taking PTO days after her regular days off.  I was thinking to ask wouldn't she rather just skip this trip and not come down until whenever we do a memorial for dad.  But she wants to gather pictures and maybe some VHS tapes and get a service to make a slide show for the computer.    Of course she couldn't do that any of the times she has been down in the last 2 years.  Well I am glad she didn't take the pics from the photo album, dad enjoyed going over those with L.   

I hate that I resent her for not helping me more.  She will do stuff I ask her to do.  I've just remained in "big sis takes charge" mode instead of giving her a list of "could you do this for me" and she hasn't been all gung ho, wanting something to do when she's been here.  

Called SS office today.  Put the ph on speaker and did low focus needed disk cleanup for 30 minutes until connected.   I think the gal said Science Care had not called SS but me having called takes care of both the SS and medicare.   I probably have to contact his part C provider and cancel them separately though.  So many details.   I keep playing one of the senior life insurance commercials in my head where the sister comes in and asks daughter how she is doing "there's a lot to take care of"  Boy howdy aint that the truth, and thanks to the great lawyer in ND advising dad to do quit claims for the land to the sibs the estate is not so complicated.  But there is the fun hiccup of dad never taking care of changing the IRA from mom as beneficiary,  probably the checking accounts are that way as well, I don't think I ever pulled that up with the online banking apps.   

No tumbleweeds were burned last weekend

I did some yard work but didn't get around to trying to burn tumbleweeds in the pasture area.   Dad's 2023 fed taxes are e-filed.  If I get asked I do have his will that states that I have PoA in event of his incapacitation; I think that does give me authorization to wrap up taxes and the like.  

Texted sis about when she is coming.   I'm going to have to try to get her to shift if possible if she was driving on  thursday, so will be too tired to do much on Friday and then heading back on Tuesday with only 1 day or possibly a bit on Sat. available for helping me, or she would shuttle me from a mechanic or something basic on Friday I guess.   

I don't want to be resentful when she is trying to help but I do feel like she has come, sucks me into wasting time watching some dumb shit on TV for a full day when she is here, and then just picks out more of dad's guns and reloading equipment and does nothing to help me with my shit the last few visits.  That is not fair, she did help quite a lot with Dad when she was here in December.  No helping me with decisions and paperwork but the help with dad was needed and I know its hard to drive that far.  My limit to be able to ride the next day used to be 400 miles and I haven't done one of those in a few years, not sure I could still do it.   And it is a GOOD thing that she and B are providing a good home to the guns and reloading equipment.  I've wanted to be more into guns and to learn reloading; but thinking 'it is a shame that I don't have the interest' never translated into actually developing any interest for over 20 years, that was not likely to change now.  

Well I ran to the closer vital records office that is only available on Wednesdays and got 12 death certificates, 6 legal and 6 official.  They are $13 a piece so I didn't want to get too many but it's an extra $7 for the first one of each kind, so I may regret not getting more now, but at least I/we can get started on the legal stuff that requires a death certificate.   Plus I'll have to get good photocopies of my DL to order by mail, maybe can take a picture with phone to order online (for an extra charge + the $20 for first cert, 13 for each additional one)   Makes me wish dad had not messed with the 'funeral expenses' life insurance policy and taken the whole life value on the other ones and just had that money in his bank account.  Oh well,  at least I don't have any private policies.  

I want to burn tumbleweeds today.

 Not that I want to do the work , but I want to get rid of the layer of mowed tumbleweeds in the pasture area.  Last year I hauled some up to the burn barrel but that didn't make that much of a dent in the weeds.  I am hesitant to do the burning because I get nervous that the fire will get away from me.   Maybe I can haul some of the chain link panels down to contain a tumbleweed pile.  That would give me peace of mind while making it possible to get more weeds burnt, not having to move the weeds too far.  

Yesterday S texted and invited me to her bday party that evening.    I asked if I could bring anything and got a nothing needed.  Twas true, they had a lot more food than was needed, most of the guest families did bring a dish.   I was ok with not having to come up with something to prepare and bring and just brought a card and went "I don't care if its considered gauche, I'm just putting cash in it"   If I'd had advance notice maybe I would have bought a TSC gift card if they sell them.   I have the impression that S is like me in not enjoying shopping,  so a generic gift card or especially a specific store card other than for Wallys would not have been good.  I know she hates dealing with traffic and doesn't like a lot of commotion.   I don't know if they use TSC for most of their critter feed, but it is close enough that buying with a gift card even if they normally go someplace else would have worked.   Maybe I'll do that next year.  I always figure with cash they can spend it anywhere and I know I tend to forget that I have the gift card when I've been given one of VISA cards that can be spent anywhere. 

Here he comes to save the day

 Well I should be working on a different project anyway.  Of course writing special tools for the high profile project so he can list it on his performance review is like a moth to a flame for our super genius software engineer.  

Credit where due,  his fix does make results of the one mission with just a couple hundred occs look good.  And he was asked to look into this initially cuz the results for the mission with close to 20K occs didn't look good and we were getting zero occs for the one constellation.  

Next week postscript.  He is trying to rescue another mission.  His fix made things better below 15 km but worse above 18 km than doing nothing.  I emailed him and cc'd the boss and the gal who will process the data with the comparison plots from doing nothing to their data other than supplying my best guess as to the frequency.  

Sigh,  he insisted I just didn't see the bias in my plots.   Instead of working on my POD wrapper that I need to get done I spent a couple hours poking around and generating plots until I was able to get one from the next day that shows he is is full of BS.  (unless the mission had some weird errors just on their first day of data.)   Sheesh.  Some days he needs a Gibbs slap or 3.   I've been adding deliver me from arrogance to my prayers most nights and I do hope god does prevent me from emulating things like this when I have errors in my work.   I try to do a humble mea culpa and then attempt to be more careful when IT has to fix something I messed up, and to apologize and work late to fix the code I wrote if it proves to have a bug. 

God grant me serenity and ability to dismiss the sib's greedy spouse responses

 If it was just us 3 kids I am confidant that figuring out the estate remnants beyond the big "A gets this house and land, B gets this house and land,  C gets this land." that dad already set up would go pretty smoothly.

  But sis called asking about coming down and mentioned "B was asking about the tractor and dad's pickup."     I'm already kind of annoyed at B for wanting every last gun of dads; and I'm having to remind myself that it is fine, he and sis are into guns.   I wanted to keep a couple extra 22s just for sentimental attachments but it is better they went to sis and B and will get care and attention vs me once in a while thinking "I should do something with these, but I need to ride horse, burn weeds, etc today instead"

I do need to forward to sis that she is getting dad's TRowe IRA.   Maybe she can shut B down with that "honey we are getting this, sis needs to keep the tractor, and we will figure out if she owes us something for keeping the pickup ..." 

Brother has not detailed any of his wife's "what are we getting, can we have this?" statements to me.  That is nice; I don't need to know if she thinks they should get more so that she can give it to her son and DiL that don't work because entry level jobs are beneath them but they can't get higher level jobs cuz they don't have the work background to get them. 

Science Care just phoned me to let me know the death certificate has been signed and should be available online by Monday and they will email me the link to order official copies from my county.  I have got to get myself signed up with them; they are so helpful with sorting things out.   Plus it would be cool to contribute to better safety if my body was used for explosive or ballistic testing, or even just educating medical students or used in forensic research (I find that a bit creepy and didn't see it listed on the extended possible research that Science Care might do with a body, but it would be ok)  

I loathe the polite "you are always welcome, let me know if I can help", yada yada statements

 Not sure what the current vernacular would call me "on the spectrum" (autism) or "low emotional?/social? IQ" or some new term I've never heard of, but I'm low skilled on knowing whether I'm getting a polite brush off, "you are always welcome to join us --with an unsaid 'but we will NEVER tell you where and when we are riding cuz we'd rather not be in your presence'" or a real offer from someone who just doesn't know what help would be useful.   

Typing that made me all weepy.  Truly it is not good to dwell on emotional hurts, many of which are probably 100% unintended by whomever delivered them.  And apparently the new way schools are damaging their students is by encouraging them to dwell on their feelings.   The teachers may be too stupid to know they are creating mental illness but I'll bet the idea of doing "feelings checks" at the start of the school days was promoted by someone wanting to cause problems.   Perhaps some radical environmentalist seeking to create a population that will mass suicide to 'save GAIA', perhaps some communist wanting to create a population that won't fight for their god given rights and freedoms.  But it is an evil practice.  

I don't know what to do with myself.

 Dad died early Friday morning before I got up.   I wasn't sure he was gone or just shallow breathing, went out and fed horses, then tried the BP cuff and it errored out plus his forehead felt cooler so I called Science Care, and they directed me to call 911 and then call them right back.  I should actually have waited until the EMTs were done to call back but it worked out in the end.

I had the aide run some of the medical equipment to good health will and offered stuff to the neighbors, one neighbor did take the electric bed and lift chair so a bit of extra monkey work for JP to unload around them but it worked out.

I need to text B and tell her dad died.  I also want to get M and J's # and so on but it would be too tacky to announce "dad died, oh and can I get ph #s to text about riding now that I'm 100% free."   I didn't sleep much last night, kept going over 'get rid of Dad's recliner, do this, do that, in my mind.'   I hate that and haven't done it in a good while; I hope it is not going to reoccur.  Part of my mental looping was possible people north of me to try to meet up with for riding together since I feel like I can't meet the bar to ride and hang out with M and J.   Possibly I'm being silly,  if I offered to bring kielbasa a couple times for the not being a sponge at their 'happy hour' after the ride, and made it a point to think about good group horsemanship they might be ok with me.  

I need to find try to find farm lease paperwork so I can call, or I have no ph #, write to the leasers and let them know that brother owns that land now.  

I'm so close to getting a new RPM ready, but stuck waiting on a coworker

 Ugh,  I hate when I've been making good progress on something and then get sidelined, especially when I need a coworker to respond back to my email or slack request.   That's the bad part of WFH, and even if I was in the office sometimes, a lot of folks are hybrid and not in office 50 to 60% of the time so the ability to just walk down the hall and pester someone so that they will move my need up in their queue is gone.

Oh well, I'll get what I need eventually and I can do some other bits on my new code while waiting.  

Colorado is supposed to have a massive snowstorm that lasts 36 hours starting this evening.   Monday's forecast was for it to be a decent March storm and give use out here on the plains a needed half to 1 inch of total precipitation with part of it rain and up to 4 inches of wet snow.   Now we are up to 6 to 12 inches of wet snow.  I'm not clear on whether our total precipitation is also bumped up by much or if for us this is just more of it as snow.   Probably total precipitation, the snowfall totals for higher elevations have been rising with each day's update so I think the models just keep bumping how much water we will get as are rerun with newer data.  

Of course I had given up all hope of us getting a good wet snow this year and didn't buy any kind of pasture seed to try to improve our weedy few acres.   Oh well, it will help our 5-7 weeks of grazing and should help with the hay growers having hay to sell this summer.  

Cold is gone, but my energy level is still very low

 Dad caught my cold.  Knock wood I think he is past the worst of it w/o getting pneumonia.  But he is hardly eating or drinking and even with JP here I had to drag out the Hoyer so we could move him from his chair to his bed yesterday morning against his desires.   Once we had dad in the bed and got done cleaning him up he slept comfortably, so it was a good thing that I finally forced it.   I probably should call an ambulance and get him hauled to an ER for fluids, but he doesn't want to and even though the ER was very good about releasing him once they had given him IV fluids and gotten his blood sugar down when the aide called 911 last November I am hesitant to do it.   I sure wish it was possible to just have a service come out and administer fluids here at home.  

I did do shopping and got cash,  burned trash and a decent # of weeds this morning and finally swabbed out the dead freezer with a strong bleach solution.   I was wanting to burn more weeds but told myself that moving the freezer into the tack room, or junking it if there is a smell that will mess up feed storage will do more for overall appearance of the place.   I used to roll my eyes with mom messing with her flower gardens for small bit of reward while letting maintenance slide.   Course she probably thought it should be dad's job to do more of that maintenance.  

I am tentatively decided that it would be morally wrong to take or send dad to an ER when he does not want to go.  And I don't have a medical POA so I don't know that I legally could do it even if I was flipped on the morality.   But when he wakes up I will have to push him to drink some fluids.  I need to contact sis.  I've no idea what to tell her, but do need to keep her in the loop.  

Texted sis.  She is working and will call tonight.   Well I was not seeking her advice, just letting her know. I am a bit annoyed.  She calls me and always it is "you could call me"  Well I can't keep track of when her days off are.  If she wants me to call she needs to text me with "I'm off and not traveling anywhere on these days"    I don't think it matters as far as phone bills go.  I texted her last Sunday and she said she would call later and never did.   I would have called or texted if there was more definite news on dad.

I don't know what to do about L.   I had wondered a few months ago if paying her to come in was giving her the opportunity to start drinking again but I put it out of my head.    Thursday she was here and not feeling well so I had JP run her and her e-bike home.   She asked him to go to a store so she could buy something. Then I guess the place he took her to needed ID or something and she asked him to take her someplace else 'so I can buy liquor' and he declined, gave her the impression he would later, but he did not want to be a reason she relapsed.   I need to suck it up and at least have a frank discussion with her if she comes Monday.  This might be why her Dh is stalling on getting the breathalyzer lock put on a vehicle, he fears she would go buy booze to drink at home and relapse into the alcohol addiction and figures having to use the e-bike makes it hard enough that she won't do it, plus she had not been working so no ready cash.   Now I don't think trying to make it so she can't buy booze is a long term option.  That is something for short term to get past the initial tough physical addiction phase, but I think folks need to come up with another coping mechanism for whatever emotional or mental pains cause them to seek comfort in a bottle.

I've walked up to dad in his bed at least 3 times today and made myself walk away when I see he really is still sleeping.   I call it engineer brain.   I want to try to 'fix it.'  In this case fix him by trying to nag him into drinking a decent amount of gatorade, water, pepsi, or tea.   I went back and read a post on a a BB that only has a few members left from the one talking about her father's recent clot in his neck.   His arm was numb and poster's younger sister was respecting his "no I don't want to go to a doc" but older sister got a nephew to take grandpa to an ER.   It is the kind of situation where it would be good to have gone over various possibilities with dad while he was more with it.     If that poster's dad/grandpa was generally of mindset of wanting medical care up to going on a ventilator than yes I suppose one does ignore their "oh I don't need to see a doc just because my arm is numb" and takes them in.   I know when I read "when they are 87, you don't ask you just take them" initially and my thought was "NO,  just because they are elderly doesn't mean they shouldn't have any say in how much medical treatment they want"    

Funny how the countries that are farther down the socialist slope than we are, such as the Netherlands and Canada are going the opposite route and euthanizing people if they are not coherent enough to demand a chance to live as well as counseling folks with depression to have the state euthanize them. 

And if I had IV fluids in the house I might be tempted to try to IV dad myself.  Luckily I don't have any so I can't mess with it.   A dehydrated elderly person is probably hard to get an IV in a vein even for folks that do IVs regularly.  

Yuck, I hate being sick

 It is just a cold, but blech.  I've gone through dozens of kleenex in the last few days and swilling various tea like it is going out of style.   It was beautiful yesterday but I didn't feel energetic enough to ride.  I did get dad's car picked up from the repair place.  Very nice folks, he even took it in for emission test so I should see if I can get do the online registration.  Since I'm past the grace month I may have to go in as well as have the penalty charge.   I also did a bit of detailing on the inside of the Prius.   Got the back seats better this time.  I think Toby stink was a bigger part of the overall stinky car smell.   Hopefully it will be bearable now.  

Need to tell JP that he can take dad's pickup if he has concerns parking my extra long pickup as long as he hooks it back up to the horse trailer.   It probably can benefit from being driven.  

Well the penalty for not renewing on time was not horrible,  $25.   I wonder if they will send Jan tags or it ends up getting Feb tags now.  And I was able to do it w/o the reminder card that I mislaid.  

I don't feel like running to town so unless a check really won't work for JP I'll just do that.  but I guess I can drag myself to the bank if I really need to.   But he needs to make his bank behave properly and not hold checks for over a week.  That was just ridiculous for them to do that.  And if he'd had his zelle stuff correct I could have been paying him from dad's 1st bank.  As it is, I have to get a POA and get 1st bank to re-instate the online banking and send a new debit card.  Oh well I did need to quit procrastinating and get a POA form anyway.   I hope it doesn't take weeks and weeks to get permission to write checks and shit at the banks once I get that.

Ugh, Monday Monday

 I set up an appointment to have dad's care checked out, hopefully fix whatever is making the check engine light come on last week, stupidly forgetting that JP takes Mondays off.   But I figured 'oh well,  L comes in on Mondays and I can see if they can work on the car right away and maybe finish it in a few hours while I hang out in Fort Lupton, and if they need it overnight I can probably get a neighbor to pick me up or rent a car or something.'     So of course this is a rare Monday where L is a no show.   She hasn't even sent a text that she is sick.    I forced myself to put on my big girl pants and call the repair shop to reschedule.  No huge thing,  I will have to pay whatever penalty for renewing the registration late but such is life.

I was telling JP I'm probably foolish to keep the Prius as well as the rabbit and he expressed interest.  He would take the  Prius in lieu of most of his payment for helping with dad.  He wants to sell his Focus and get an SUV and figured if he could also sell the Prius that would work well for him.   I will have to think about taking him up on that.  

Dad is weak with another cold type virus.  I may have to just roll him back and forth in bed to get him cleaned up and prop with a pillow to have his pills and tea and breakfast.   I should text sis that he has this virus.   If it doesn't escalate it will be better for her to keep the plan to wait till April to visit, cuz dad recuperates slowly anymore.   But I do have to let her know he has the virus in case it does escalate. 

It is going to be a beautiful weekend

 I texted B last night.  Didn't ask about riding, just how was she and Taj.  She responded back asking about  me, dad and Tanza and I told her I have started having live in help and we are all pretty good.   She came back with that is good that I have lightened my burden.  But no "so are you free to meet at trailhead X and ride" or anything like that.    So I'm trying to decide if I will just go ride by myself tomorrow.  

Well I thought I noticed low wind speeds when I checked the forecast yesterday but it is gusting pretty good.   At least I burned the household trash earlier before the wind started.  Maybe I shall shlep to town after all.  We aren't absolutely out of stuff but some things are a bit low.   Its too bad I hate to shop. 

I rode Tanza Saturday in the paddocks and today I rode out on the road and field roads.   I had been nervous to ride out of the paddock at home and had quit doing it.  But today I figured since I rode some yesterday I'm happy to just ride at a walk and it will good for us.  And it was fun.  Tanza did get pretty animated but he was controllable.   Maybe I'll get my riding mojo back.   Keep the speed slow riding out and canter and trot longer stretches in the paddocks and swallow my foolish pride and ask B if she wants to ride together on weekends.   

Floundering lately

 I am going to have to go around my mental block and get a POA for dad ASAP.

I left the toyota plate renewal until 1/2 way through this grace month and 'oh crap, emissions required.'  Went to emissions place today but the check engine light makes it fail so I have to get that fixed.  I went to grease monkey and had them change oil and asked them to clear the codes.   "sometimes we are not allowed to do that"  I guess they were not.   So stupid.  I suspect the code is just a remnant from the battery going bad.  If there is a real issue with the car the code would come right back.   I'm probably going to be lucky to get the darned thing fixed in time to renew by the deadline and will have to remember not to drive it until the mailed tags arrive.  

I am in bank/zelle hell.   Tried to set it up zelle on dads WF since it his main bank that gets the SS deposits  etc.  But they INSIST on trying to send the approval code to the home phone by TEXT only.  They even did that with my new bank account sigh which had my cell phone entered when I set up that account.     First Bank has locked me out of the online account.   I installed zelle on my cell phone to try to use my elevations via the debit card.  Cannot because I have the # and email attached to First Bank.  D'oh.   I might have to get a 2nd cell phone and 2nd email in dad's name to be able to do the zelle payments from his bank accounts.   I don't want to pay from my checking and transfer money to reimburse myself.   Must get the dang POA yesterday to get things straightened out. 

Got myself to convention yesterday

 I was extra late to the morning sessions but at least I got there and visited a bit.  The afternoon session was pretty valuable.  I need to look up the stable core gal and see if I can get to one of her workshops. 

I must pray for better communication skills

 Especially when I am tired I am so whiffing on communications with the aides.   I've got to improve in that area.

But at least I am getting braver about having people come in.  Perhaps it is an overall good that the home health company did not work out.  Forcing me to grow a bit.  

Next week is the regional convention.   I whiffed on pre-registering and will have to force myself to go; but the forecast is still not good riding weather and I need to network with riding people and get inspired to start riding with more purpose by the ride opportunities.  

So hopefully JP or the other aide that has expressed some interest can be here on Saturday.   I thought I'd give JP a short briefing and go off to ride today unless I rode yesterday based on extended forecast that I had not checked back on.  I was so bummed last Thursday morning to get the work mo-cast that it was going to snow Friday night right about the time I was going to text B to see if she'd like to meet somewhere to ride.   But it is ok, gives me a better evaluation of JP.    He seems good so far, might a bit overly restless with down periods that happen between bits when dad needs something but he dived into vacuuming the floor, and I had him take the tree down.  

I mostly whiffed Christmas.  I tried, got the tree set up.   Had not bought a gift for dad but wrapped up his WW2 knife, thought I'd see if he remembered buying it.  But he slept all day Dec 25th, ignoring the box; so I never did have him open it.  

I rode Tanza a little bit yesterday

 I didn't get ducks in a row to be able to haul anywhere but at least I got a little bit of riding in.   I also burned trashed and a bunch of tumbleweeds that had blown against the driveway wings and into the yard.  Feels like I did more than that, but I did spend a lot of time lurking on my favorite blog. 

Today I took a walk,  got the door off the freezer that died so I could clean the kitty litter out of it.   I'm waiting for the litter to dry more so I can shovel or rake it away from the freezer with less mess.  Then when I'm not collecting that clay on my muck boots I'll scrub it with some bleach.  If the smell can be removed so it won't put the horses off their feed the freezer will be handy to store horse feed in.  If the smell is permanent then I'll do the got junk or equivalent to have it hauled away.  

K took the weekend off.  Saturday she was meeting a potential new family.  I need to update my care dot com ad and try to get someone to come in regular on weekends and probably Tuesdays and Wednesdays when I have a lot of online meetings.  Then I need to overcome my fear of rejection and start networking to try to get some riding meetups on weekends and get back into being a trail rider, maybe work back up to being a low level endurance rider. 

Work has been better having K here.

 I had not realized how much the interruptions to care for dad here and there were affecting my ability to focus and get work tasks done.  I had the mindset that "it isn't that many total hours caring for dad and the horses, I have time left to get work done and I was getting work done" but I was focusing much better this last week when K was getting dad his eggs and so on.   So it would be nice to have someone here more of the time when I should be working.   But if I just get more days or part days covered it will help tremendously.   

I'm so burned out I can't make myself do things

 I'm being stupid.  If I will suck it up and try some of the independent aides I can probably get myself to a point of being able to take a weekend really truly off now and again and that would probably save me from having a full on break down.  Perhaps part of me wants to have a breakdown.  Stupid.  Oh fandamily and neighbors would probably step in to get dad cared for; but I doubt anybody would try to help me.  I'd end up in a mental health facility and some of those are just about milking every drop of money out of any insurance and whatnot and do nasty stuff to keep from releasing patients.  

The caregiver role is stupidly lonely.  One of the IT guys reached out to me if I need an ear because he went through it with his dad.  He moved back home for a while to help his mom take care of his dad.   With as common as dealing with this shit is it seems like there would be scads of online forums and support groups offered by the community and so on; but that really does not seem to be out there.  At least not easily found online.  Perhaps a lot of people are in the same emotional boat as me and feel like they shouldn't find it such a hassle and don't want to admit they get screaming frustrated at their parents at times.  At least dad can't hear when I am ranting at him for getting decrepit.  

Waiting to hear from the possible live in aide

 I'm very poor at reading people.   I got a feeling she was mostly being polite and isn't going to choose to live out here "in the boonies"; but I could easily be wrong there.  This neighborhood feels quite urban to me having lived in a really rural area as a kid.  But she got lost trying to get here.  Was on the correct road but didn't come far enough east to find our house and called me and asked if I could meet her at the intersection.  She said she had a family in Aspen wanting to hire her and would decide by Tuesday and let me know.  Also said she wasn't sure about being clear up in Aspen, so far from the metro area so who knows.  I wondered later if she was trying to get me to offer higher salary but no way I'm going to try to outbid folks who can afford to live in Aspen. 

I have had some folks inquiring about coming on the weekends and if I got someone good for weekends that would be big help to me in feeling safe to try to schedule trailhead meetups.  

I dropped the ball on work year rollover.   I logged in at UTC midnight and a bunch of stuff had started failing early in the day.  Oh well.  I was not on call and no one volunteered to switch Xmas weekend with me so that I would be on call for the year rollover so they can just live with the short outage they had.