A Calling (and Cookies) in Everyday Ramblings

This is one of the beautiful trees outside our Central Library yesterday morning. I was walking back from yet another visit to our local scenic Social Security office.

If I don’t get my determination on effective date letter (so I can start Medicare Part B) this week they tell me a third visit next Monday will be the charm. (In spite of the fact that I have been told twice that all I had to was come back and they could produce the letter on the spot).

The gentleman at the window laughed when I said I sent my forms in 10 days ago and said well you wouldn’t expect a letter in that short a period. He did go off and find the actual forms I had submitted, stamped them, entered my info in their computer and then gave them back to me.

Apparently there is a learned passivity that is expected here that I have not mastered yet.

By this time next week I will have the date and can set up the supplemental insurance and stabilize my health coverage for going forward.

I have a dermatology (full body check for melanoma reoccurance) appointment scheduled in late December so that is my goal in terms of getting this operational.

In some ways though having this waiting period is great because I can focus on other things.

The lemon cream cheese cookies were not a success. They taste okay, a bit cake-like and underdone but because the dough was so sticky and I didn’t know that going in they are all these odd shapes and look very homemade.

Kes tried a batch of them too, without seeing anything other than pictures of mine because we live an hour apart and so she couldn’t taste them. Hers did not turn out well either and she refrigerated her dough and used a systematic approach to forming them.

I took a few over to The Sherlock’s on Sunday and they said they were okay but wanted them crisper.

The next batch will be traditional oatmeal cookies with dried cranberries instead of raisins. And I am almost ready to make the almond carrot cake.

Now that I am a lady of leisure it is apparent that there are going to be a number of potlucks in my future; these hiking groups I am associating myself with (I have joined the Cascade Prime Timers) are active but they also like to eat. :)

I am updating my kitchen game just a bit. I got a new micro plane for zesting and hard cheese and I have a set of deep sturdy mixing bowls on the way and am considering cookie scoops, also good for melons and some sort of meatball dish that might be meatless.

There will be a time in the very near future where I will need to rein in these small purchases but for right now I am playing it by ear. It is a bit disconcerting to be living fully off savings for now but I did plan for this.

Financial resourcefulness will be deployed when the time comes. These little splurges for a few nice new small things are significantly cheaper and less carbon intensive say, than, oh, traveling or buying a motorcycle or a boat, which folks often do in retirement.

The new leggings and course on Tantra are for yoga and that is still a going concern.

There was a new couple that came to my class last night. They were a bit late so it was awkward as the class was underway. They are lovely folks and I do hope they return. I was chuffed though because it means the modest marketing efforts I have been making are somewhat effective.

The weather has been substantially drier than normal and warmer as well. It is disconcerting.

But then that is something we are all experiencing in our own ways. I read the other day a resident of Venice posit the irony of climate refugees from Bangladesh selling cheap boots to local residents to help them deal.

We are all going to be called upon in someway to help and adjust as we deal with this. I am grateful that for me I can do this from a place of leisure and not crazy dysfunctional soul killing work.