5:40 AM. We had about four inches of snow on top of the “wintery mix” as they call snow, freezing rain, and sleet here on Thursday. I got home from work on Thursday and got out my electric snow thrower that my wife bought me for Christmas two years ago after a snowfall. She couldn’t figure out what to get me, and then it snowed and I was out there cursing up a storm trying to shovel off my driveway, and she got the idea. Then it didn’t snow again the rest of that winter or at all last winter. So I got out the snow thrower and cleared off the driveway and sidewalk in about 20 minutes. It was awesome. So then I got up on Friday morning to the four inches of new snow and cleared off the driveway and sidewalk and the neighbor’s driveway and sidewalk all in about 35 minutes. Our neighbor is a widow with 12- and 10-year-old daughters. I did it because I could and because people looked after my wife and kids whenever I was deployed so I try to pay it forward, and lastly (and probably the real reason if I’m honest with myself) I was just having too much fun with my toy to stop. We’re supposed to get more snow here this afternoon and evening, so I’ll get another chance to play tomorrow morning!
Soonerdaughter is on a liquid diet for three months that started Thursday, per her gastroenterologist. She’s had significant relief from her symptoms with the budesonide, but she’s not in remission yet, and the doctor wants to get her there and thinks this may be the trick that does it. She had a rough time over Thanksgiving. She’s not happy at all, thinking about all the toffee and fudge and sugar cookies and 7-layer bars and so on and so forth and such like that she won’t be able to partake. My family are huge Christmas candy eaters. She’s not normally grumpy, but she’s been in a pretty foul mood the last couple of days. Well, I would be, too, so we’re just going to let her feel what she feels and express what she needs to. She’s missed a lot of school recently, but my sister (her favorite aunt) teaches at her high school and her teachers love her so she’s been able to stay current with their help. We got together with the school, and she can attend classes by remote when she needs to. The teachers at our high school all have iPads on a wireless network, so she just clicks a link on her laptop, and she’s in class. I didn’t really want to have any Apple devices in my home environment, primarily because I’m more experienced with Android and Windows, but she’s getting an iPad Air for Christmas. That should make things even easier for her. My work has been very supportive of taking time off when I need to for her, so that’s been good as well.
Speaking of all of this, I am an Obamacare success story, even though I haven’t had to get my insurance from the exchange. The changes that the law requires to our insurance, Federal Employees BCBS, are going to save us a significant amount of money next year over this year, and I have the additional peace of mind of knowing my child will be able to get health insurance of her own in the future. The Out Of Pocket cap of $6,350 would have saved us about $5,000 this year.
Here is a link to an article at the Brookings Institution that would be very useful for talking to non-crazy people about PPACA. The only failure of the article is that it doesn’t say that one of the primary motivators for Republicans to repeal the law is that they are afraid people will like it and reward the Democrats with electoral victories as they did with Medicare and Social Security.
tybee
gonna be in the 70’s here. chance of rain. no snow. and we’ll be killin’ oysters all afternoon. raw, roasted, steamed…
raven
@tybee: Yea, after I froze my ass off last week!
Soonergrunt
@tybee: I assume that your handle refers to the island not far from Savannah, GA. If so, I love the place, having spent almost every free weekend I had there when I was stationed at Fort Stewart in the 90s.
raven
SG I’m sure you guys will lend all the support and guidance necessary. The results of my bride’s MRI came back and, after the spring lumbar surgery, she now has spinal stenosis. We see the doc in a couple of weeks but it looks like the same approaches as her lower back are in order. PT, meds and then surgery if all else fails.
Betty
I hope your daughter is feeling much better soon. I can certainly sympathize over the Christmas goodie problem. So great that she has so much support from the school. Best wishes to you and your family for the holidays.
Betty Cracker
You’re a good man to remove snow from the neighbor’s sidewalk — even if you are having fun doing it. I hope SD achieves remission soon. Poor kid — that’s gotta suck having to bypass the holiday goodies. Hopefully that iPad Air will make up for it in some measure!
I’m in a foul mood today without anything like SD’s excuse: Two dogs decided to stake out a yard down the street and bark all goddamn night. They started barking around 3:30 AM and are barking yet.
When it got light, I went down the street to see if I could figure out whose dogs they are so I could go blast an air horn in front of the owner’s house or otherwise inform them that their fucking dogs kept everyone awake all fucking night. One dog is a big, light colored mix (might have some boxer in it) and the other is a little yappy dog wearing a dress. I shit you not, the little dog is wearing a dress! Who does that?
No tags on them, and while I think I’ve seen them around the ‘hood, I don’t know whom they belong to. Hubby gave them each a rawhide, which shut them up for all of four minutes.
It’s unseasonably warm here (high is 84 F and it’s been like that all week). We can’t even use our outdoor fireplace because we’d be sweating. Boo-fucking-hoo, right?
Anyway, I’m gonna smoke a brisket and watch some football. I’ll root for the Sooners for your sake. Still making my other picks, though obviously I want Florida State to go down in flames; will probably put up a thread about football later if no one else beats me to it.
Mustang Bobby
SG, best wishes for your daughter.
It’s going to be a nice warm day here in South Florida. Harking back to memories of winter in Petoskey, Michigan, and wrestling with the snow blower in the early morning dark so I could get out to work makes me glad to be here, even if the summers are sultry and swampy.
Not much planned here except the annual holiday party for the local antique auto club at a fancy place on Biscayne Bay.
JMG
Dear Soonergrunt: Best wishes for your daughter. Here in New England, snowblowers are a necessity of life, and suburbanites like me have gas-powered monsters needed for three foot drifts, but you’re right, using them is fun — for awhile anyway.
Thlayli
Got up early to hit the laundromat when it opened. That’s done, and now I have the Manyoo-Newcastle game on, where not much is happening.
Today is my uncle’s birthday, so we’re having dinner at a “Tuscan steakhouse”, which brings up the obvious question “what is a Tuscan steak?”
big ole hound
Obamacare triumph. My middle aged son has cancer and his employer’s insurance claims some was pre-existing so he bought a new policy via ACA and his employer said they could take him off the old carrier. Net savings about 26k per year with the new coverage. Here in CA a platinum plan is about $530 per month for a single but treatment is about five time that.
rikyrah
http://youtu.be/PqQzjit7b1w
rikyrah
So glad you got the answers about your daughter’s condition. Working on it is hard, but you have an answer and are working on it. Hope it works out for her and for the family.
OzarkHillbilly
We had a couple of eventful weather days. The Guardian even commented:
Missouri: from hot to cold in a day
Most of southern Missouri was under winter weather warnings, with up to eight inches of snow possible by Friday evening.
“Certainly power outages are going to be a real threat,” said Scott Truett, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in St Louis. As for driving, snow on top of ice “is a very bad combination,” Truett said.
Adding to Missouri’s woes was the frigid cold. Highs were mostly expected to reach only into the 20s or low 30s ( just below 0C), a sharp decline from highs in the 60s (just below 20C) in many places just 24 hours earlier. St Louis reached 69 degrees (21C) on Wednesday; afternoon temperatures on Thursday were 40 degrees colder.
Got about an inch of sleet with 3-4 inches of snow on top of that. Presently my thermometer reads minus 4 F. Predicted high of 18. Gonna get my granddaughter today (#1 son is still MIA) Probably spend it inside baking cookies (Thank you TaMara, a couple new ones to try) with maybe a foray into the snow with a sled. Gotta remember to get lots of hot chocolate and some coconut and chocolate chips.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I got to meet Dr. Angelou years ago (she was speaking at my college, and I worked in the English Dept.). She was as awesome as you’d expect.
catclub
As to the last point, I read an article on achieving those longterm goals -Medicare and Social Security and PPACA.
In order to achieve them, you put together a motivated coalition. After you have achieved them you look around and find that the motivated coalition has broken up and no longer needs you for that particular cause. The conclusion on the voters who will then love your party forever: “If you want gratitude, get a dog.”
It was disheartening, but I could not find a particular flaw with the argument.
RonzoniRigatoni
After about a hunnert years, I finally decided that my BCBS FEP was costin’ me too dang much for so little use so I finally opted out for sumptin’ else. Of course now I will contract some gawdawful tropical disease, (this is Florida after all. Hi, Betty) and find I have a $5000 deductable. Dang Fed pension + SS provides TOO MUCH MONEY, a condition I am definitely not used to LOL.
BTW, what’s a snow blower?.
Fort Geek
@Thlayli: If it’s related to Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz the review comments should be funny.
debbie
@raven:
FWIW, I had a friend with stenosis so painful, she willingly crawled down NYC sidewalks in her flannel nightgown just to get an MRI (she was a proper East Coast WASP, prone to wearing pearls and sweater sets). While they were trying to figure out what course to take, they got her into a pool and started water therapy. The pain quickly and totally disappeared. She’s since died, but it never bothered her again. Just a thought.
OzarkHillbilly
Glad to hear of the progress for your daughter SG. Hopefully soon she will have progressed enough that you can pretend not to see her stealing a cookie or 2?
I suspect most people are beneficiaries of the PPACA. We are and my wife get’s our insurance thru work. She was reading the plan options for next year and kept saying, “This is now covered.” and “That is now covered.” with interjections of “So are this and that and such and such will cost less.” After repeated suggestions that she can thank Obama for that, I got a disgusted look and she shut up. (she voted for him, she just hates it when I interject politics into any conversation).
Fort Geek
@RonzoniRigatoni:
A cocaine user during allergy season! *rimshot*
Thankyou, thankyou, I’ll be here all weekend…
CarolDuhart2
Cooking. Chicken, cornbread and green beans, as much to provide heat as to provide a good meal. Struggling with the idea of going outside to work as opposed to staying home and absorbing the financial hit.
Soonergrunt, you have the patience of Job. For someone to be on a liquid diet right now and watching everyone eat has got to be rough on your daughter, especially at her age.
raven
@debbie: Thanks, my dad had the surgery about 20 years ago and it certainly helped. They have refined the procedure quite a bit in the ensuing years so we’ll see.
Schlemizel
SG – I was on liquids only for a little over a month with the cancer things and it was psychologically harder than expected. Most of the time I was too sick to care but when I was feeling better having to smell something I wanted to eat but couldn’t was tough & bordered on obsession. I tried making drinks with various flavors & sometimes that would help but certain foods provide a visceral sensation (crunchy/chewy that sort of thing) and I missed that. This is a crappy time of year for that diet – hopefully she will be able to look back on this & laugh some day but I understand being cranky.
I was also out of school for a couple of months when I was in elementary school. No I-pads then, stone tablets! But a visiting teacher would stop by for two hours M/W/F to collect my work, give me new assignments and help in areas I had questions. Fortunately my mom was incredibly smart & well read so actually ended up ahead by the end. But the social interaction was missing and it was almost as if I was a new kid in school when I went back. Maybe with all the new technology she can stay in the mix with her friends.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Ugh. Back surgery. They say some day I am going to need it for my neck. It’s going to have to get a whole lot worse before I will let them cut on my spine. Which tells me a whole lot about how much pain your wife is in. Sorry to hear it is not (yet) abating.
Schlemizel
@raven:
Wishing the best for your bride, Back pain sucks & stenosis can cause grief in so many places. I have heard of people who have gotten better without surgery so I hope that will be her case but if not she picked the right time to be alive. The work like a couple of things I have had to deal with in the last decade has gotten so much better that the awful stories from the past just don’t happen now, recovery time is quicker and the results way better. Keep us in the loop as much as you are comfortable with – we are all pulling for you.
Schlemizel
@RonzoniRigatoni:
Except that I still remember life in FLorida I occasionally dream of starting my snow blower, point South and not stopping until someone says “HEY! What the hell is that thing?”
@Fort Geek:
What do you call it when someone blows coffee all over their keyboard because of a comment? Thanks for the laugh
MomSense
@raven:
Sorry to hear your news. Your bride is very lucky to have you by her side. Hopefully you can find some treatments that help.
Sooner, your daughter is tough and she has a good family and community behind her. We are all rooting for her, too.
Going to anger my puritan ancestors and engage in some pagan mockery today. Found the tree stand and the boxes of decorations. This is my coon cat’s favorite time of year as we always leave at least one empty decoration box under full of newspaper under the dining room table for him to nap in. Last year he climbed in the box while I was still unpacking and I had to pull ornaments out from under him. His part Siamese brother has the opposite experience and is terrified of paper rustling sounds-well he is terrified of everything so he will spend the next 3 weeks hiding in my son’s room. The white lights were once set on blink and I think he almost had a heart attack bless his heart.
Fort Geek
@Schlemizel: *bow* My mission here is done…nap time =)
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemizel:
Not sure what to call “it”, but I call them a “blowhard”
Mike in NC
Latest GOP nullification strategy, courtesy of Lindsey Graham (R-Benghazi!). He wants states controlled by Republican governors and/or legislatures to “opt out” of participating in PPACA entirely. Plans to meet with Gov. Nikki Haley, fellow sociopath and grifter, to flesh out the idea. Fortunately both are too stupid to probably make much progress. The teabaggers are still breathing down Lindsey’s neck, so he needs to look busy trying to screw the country and start another war in the Middle East.
gnomedad
In other words, a “taker”.
/snark /damage control
raven
Thanks ya’ll. she’s tough.
Roger Moore
@catclub:
I suspect that how successful things like Social Security and Medicare are at coalition building depends on how hard the other guys work to overturn them after they’re in place. If the Republicans give up on repealing it, it will go away as an issue pretty quickly. If they keep treating it as the Worst! Thing! Ever! and make repealing it the center of their platform, the Democrats will continue to be able to make political bank by defending it.
schrodinger's cat
I can has publication?. Freshly minted Caturday Kitteh, just for you.
Davis X. Machina
@JMG: I live up near Lewiston, ME and get by all winter with just a big electric.
My neighbors with $2000 Toros laugh, but it gets the job done. Granted my driveway is short, but it’s two cars wide and the plowback can be thigh-high. Fourth winter coming up, and it cost me $180. I can throw ten of them out and still be ahead of the Toro.
Patience, and multiple passes. If the forecast is for more than 10″ I go out mid-storm and do it in two. (As a teacher, I’m invariably home if it snows that much, so going out mid-day mid-storm isn’t an issue).
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: Powerful statement and video. If I hadn’t clicked on it I wouldn’t have known it was posted by the US Dept of State. I’m anticipating that particular wingnut freakout with glee.
Rub it in, White House, rub it in.
Lurking Buffoon
Hey Sooner, assuming you didn’t get utterly bombarded with them a few months back, as someone whose had Crohn’s disease for nearly 5 years if you want I could send some advice your way. I have absolutely no idea how to get in contact with anyone here, especially since the FP’er contact thing wants me to create an email account through Outlook rather than just using my Gmail, but the offer stands!
Furthermore, awesome of you to help out your neighbor with the snow!
Texas Aggie
” one of the primary motivators for Republicans to repeal the law is that they are afraid people will like it and reward the Democrats with electoral victories as they did with Medicare and Social Security.”
Whaddya mean “one of the primary motivators?” There is no other. Kristol himself said that was the only reason to not work with Hillarycare way back when. Obamacare is almost entirely their own creation, but now that it is starting to help people, they have to denounce it and get rid of it or they’re goners for the next generation.
Texas Aggie
@tybee: How nice. We have temps in the single digits (°C) and rain. The dogs are not happy.
YellowJournalism
Sooner, you’re a saint for helping out you neighbor, even if you did it to play with your toy. Because we live with snow for much of the year, many communities around here have “angels” who sign up to shovel the walks and driveways of the elderly or others in need, because even if a person is physically unable to clear their walk, they get fined by the city. You should check to see if there’s a program like that in your area if you want to have more fun with your toy.
Good luck to Soonerdaughter. Is she able o partake in hot chocolate on her liquid diet? Let her explore the many different flavor combos if she’s able to.