why your money belongs in a mattress

So with all the expenses I'm trying to cover, some of which have nothing to do with me personally-I found my bank account on the edge, literally short a few dollars so that 2 checks I ran, uh, hobbled would be more accurate, but I went in good faith, to give my landlord on the 28th, would not go thru without bounce fees totalling $79 (35/35 on each end). I was so embarrassed but decided the adult thing would be to call landlord and ask them to hold it just until after July 4th holiday, but as luck goes, they deposited both checks on the 29th. I went online and 'stopped' the smaller check, so the rent check could go thru. A few hours later I check the account, strictly from nerves because I'm also wondering when the hell the LTD company plans to deposit their check-like its a minimum 3 day holiday, for some its four days, so I'm a hoping and a prayin that by July 1 Friday the damn check is in the bank and I dont have to wait until July 5, but its their perogative to decide when its deposited anytime between the 3rd and 7th...I think that's the range they once quoted me. The bank grabbed its stop check fee immediately. Now, the reasons a person stops a check are many including lack of funds, though that was never the intention when the check was written-you know people hold checks and when you think the account has deducted the payment or purchase, no it shows up a week or more later when you thought the funds were available, surprise!! I am now .35 over my rent check and if anything comes through for processing in the meantime, I'm out both the stop check fee of $27 and $70 for bounced check. I, am going to learn, for the future, to be like every other pig and wait until the last freakin minute, not be a nice guy not worry about doing the right thing and take care of me first, period. I could have easily sat home and paid these freakin bills after the holiday, but I went in so they wouldnt have any issues with a new tenant. The "house" always wins-thats why your money belongs in your mattress.

Surgery, cats, stuff

Surgeon scheduled surgery during month of AV and since I follow the english calendar...its a good thing I have one daughter albeit she's in Israel that caught the problem and suggested moving the date back after the Nine Days. That was done, but the pain is horrendous now and I can barely get any sleep. I moved from the bed with the useless foam mattress I bought to put on top of the pillow top to relieve pressure on joints, to the futon in the living rm. I dont know if its the foam after 3 years just doesnt hold up, its not temperpedic, but the same advertised density foam, but now its like a pile of cotton that I sink into and to turn during the night requires waking up every time and carefully moving. One night my knee dislocated, just popped by being moved without thinking. And taking pain meds a month before surgery is not good, surgeon isnt using full anesthesia, he uses a local block-he's a madman and if I had any brains would look for another doctor. But with everything involved doing hip replacement, adjusting the apt, buying equipment for bathrm, rearranging kitchen etc, my main concern now is how and if I can continue managing the cats. As of now its very difficult bending to grab their food dishes, water dish and cleaning the litter box. I found a litter rake that I can buy to replace the short scoop, so that isnt an issue. I think also I need to purchase a stool with wheels so when doing things like scooping poop or picking up food bowls I will be lower to the ground and not having to bend from the hip/waist. I wrote to a shelter this morning asking if they can recommend some solutions as to what to do with the cats, maybe its best I give them up. They meow and cry when I sleep outside the bedroom where they spend their time. Its rare they spend more than a few minutes outside in the living rm. All their things are in one place, they feel safe in the bedroom and since they havent been here more than 2 months, its still hard for them. But then I decided to be more adult (!) and look into pet sitting. The idea of paying someone to come into my space creeps me out, not for the money, but for the idea that someone is in my personal space. But it seems that locally there are some bonded and experienced pet sitters and so this might be the best solution. I can have a girl come in 3x a day for about $20 and would do it for a week-these guys dont need anything, well Mr. B doesnt, maybe Taytee would love some attention and affection, he's normal. Mr. B doesnt let anyone pet or hold him...its gets worse each year. I think he needs a vet visit and I would like to do this before surgery, because it will be too much for some time afterwards. Just taking a piss is a physical feat now with so much joint pain. But can't reserve pet sitter until I know the decision of dentist-since I just moved here have to see a new dentist for teeth/ mouth medical clearance for surgery. So if any dental work is needed, everything is on hold, everything. I think buying a wheelchair and sitting in it would be less money, aggravation all around. The damn hip takes about a full year to completely heal (read the fine print) and they say about 6 wks...they told me my knee would heal in 2 wks and back to work. That was 3 decades ago and the surgeon took the torn miniscus out and left a busted knee inside with no solution. So the knee also needs to be replaced. I asked the surgeon if doing this operation wasn't like opening pandora's box...start with one hip and then piece by piece everything will need to be replaced. Nothing like going under the knife with confidence and optimism:-)

The Rebbe

The Rebbe

Frum in PA

...not. I left the chaos of NY thinking a new place, another place where I am relatively unknown, left alone that being shomer shabbos would become 2nd nature. It's become even more difficult and I blame the laziness, the constant physical and general disinterest in most things other than trying to get rest, trying to do things that become harder every day. Every day I get up around 7am, take care of cats, wash, daven and say tehillim. And that's the beginning and the end...as Naguib Mahfouz once wrote. I light shabbos candles, daven shabbos maariv, sing sholom aleichem because its the strongest link to my childhood memories of shabbos...sometimes eat, with the late shabbos, its too late to eat for me. I make tea...which means heating water, plopping a tea bag into a mug and doing everything wrong. Since I'm on disability now I had to find doctors here before I moved. So in the short 7 weeks I'm here, I've met with 5 doctors and am scheduled for a hip replacement. If the surgeon could replace one hip and both knees he would, but that too fast tracking, even for him. Its very very difficult finding a rhuematologist here. Like NY, this state is consolidating its health care system and one entity has consumed smaller hospitals, doctors are walking away either to go into private practice and deny the insurances they dont like or to join other practices. So I got referred to a real winner. If my NY rhuemi wasn't the angel she is, I would be off every rhuematoid med that has kept me in one piece since the mid-2000s. So my kids ask, yeah well how come you're so sick and retired early? Actually my dears had I understood the system better and had my employer been forthcoming about disability insurance which they refuse to discuss with employees except on a need-to-know-basis, I would have retired at least 2-3 years earlier as my bones were crunching, crackling and disintegrating from the endless subway stairs for 25+ years every day while carrying home work files and groceries because my income wasn't enough to afford anything but the Brooklyn dump I lived in. And my landlord kept telling me to call him, he would arrange to pick me up, return me to Brooklyn, they would have a basement for me to live in. They couldnt lower the rent on the apt over their office where I lived 19 years and they wouldnt paint or replace any appliances...I was quiet, paid on time, no matter who came and went, the rent got paid. So I am not being a model citizen for my kids, who are adults and able to make educated choices regarding religion...but they were all exposed to chassidus for many years, maybe it wasnt in a positive way, or its resented because of the divorce and my leaving...I dont know. But I find no one is interested in being Jewish except as a cultural identity, holidays mean sharing family meals. My father who married my shiksa mother was the same kind of Jew, heartbroken at being shunned. No one in the Jewish community has reached out to me except one woman who took me to a "kosher" dunkin donuts (really, kosher? and not a mashgiach in sight) (my post got cut, this is only half..if I can recall the rest I'll rewrite it another day...what a f*ck that is)

moved and other unimportant news

Yeah, I moved, thank G-d out NY, the sewer of the world. No more 'blind' pedestrians pushing and shoving as they walk past you without a word. No more attitudinous self important semi educated minorities in positions where they like nothing better than moving like molassess, ignoring whomever is there they were hired to assist. (I think this issue is nationwide in the US-attitudinous while claiming victimhood, demanding equal rights and reparations). No more family ghosts, they all died, there is no family, never was...except my father, whose been gone since '73 but managed to protect and steer me to Chabad. No more liars and schemers at work who say one thing and sharpen their knives while whittling away at any stature or respect you had gained over the years. No more tiny filthy apartment that overlooked a tiny back yard where the cats, first Pids, then the boys sat for hours watching nothing but Chinese laundry debris fluff fly by or the occasional leaf after all the trees were cut down because they interferred with Chinese Dish reception and all the birds left. No more tired doctor who for 5 years threw meds at me, trying to make me well as my body slowly disintegrated into a pit of pain and barely able to walk. I caught a few episodes of Sex and the City, a series I entirely missed when it first appeared and then was in reruns. Its now in its third rerun cycle and two post series movies were made and Kim Cattrall is bitching about no work for 'older actresses' as she continues to portray herself as a purring cougar, yeech. And I must say, its a world that exists for some perhaps or maybe only in the minds of the producers. NYC is not the fairy tale twinkling lights of fun sex love and light. Its violent, ruthless, non stop or getoutoftheway screw you, filled with ingratitude, selfishness and pockets of good deeds done that rarely if ever get done anonymously, usually calling attention to themselves for praise, promotion and future positions. No one in NY does nuthin for nuthin. As my dad said when I told him I got into Hunter College in the months before his death, we were penniless, scrambling and he had no idea what would happen to his young wife and 2 daughters. You dont get nuthin for nuthin.... I learned alot...left 5 kids and a husband to go to college on a scholarship on the idea I would work and eventually get my kids and support us. But the world of mankind and it is a man's world still, doesnt operate according any particular law other than Murphy's. 28 yrs later...I'm living in a state I never been to except once on a bus to sample shoe-fly pie. People say hello even though they dont know you from nuthin. People help out, I've been stopped on the street, asked if I need help carrying something. A woman last week while driving motioned at the stop light, asking if I was okay. That is how obvious my being ill has become. Carrying a small amount of groceries is a mammoth job that can only be described as trying to climb a mountain naked against the elements-sheer cliff, wind, snow, heat agonizing pain and like Sisyphus, I may get close to finding a med that alleviates some symptoms, but efficacy is always just out of reach as I near base camp, down we go to begin again. And so the docs here have marvelled at my condition, the truckload of meds I take that appear to do little or nothing to alleviate (there's that word again) pain or symptoms of the vascillating "comordbid" illnesses I've been diagnosed with. The first doctor, G-d bless his soul, took away all my NY pain meds and gave me brand new pain medication and this one works! Works well enough I can skip a day, know its there if I need it and he was perplexed why I was left to live like that.