GetSheila

Sziraki Update (yawn)

 

Saturday, Jul. 24, 2010 Sentencing postponed for embezzler Sziraki A Friday sentencing hearing for convicted embezzler Kimberly Sziraki was postponed until Sept. 14 in Merced County Superior Court. The hearing was moved because Judge Ronald Hansen, who presided over Sziraki's case, was unavailable Friday. Sziraki, 45, pleaded no contest last month to stealing $1.6 million from a Merced nut processing plant. As part of the plea agreement with prosecutors from the Merced County District Attorney's Office, Sziraki will be sentenced to between five and eight years in prison. She remains free on bail. -- Victor A. Patton Read more: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2010/07/24/1505771/sentencing-postponed-for-embezzler.html#ixzz0unjfgsQB

There isn’t any more story to read at the link but you can check out the comments left by the crazy people. Until they move the story and break the link, of course.

What were they thinking scheduling a hearing for a Friday? Isn’t that golf day for lawyers and judges?

 

Technorati Tags: kim sziraki,kim walker,merced embezzlement

Mending Mania

I finally got around to the mending I’ve let pile up for about a year now.

I shortened sleeves, repaired hems, fixed holes, reinforced seams, and attached buttons.  I’ve a whole new wardrobe!

Next I organized all those buttons one seems to collect with every new garment purchase.

Not too daunting a haul considering I just stick them in a bedside drawer to deal with later…and haven’t done so for some time now.

I just love that “I’m so organized, have wearable clothes I’d forgotten all about, what shall I put on that empty shelf that used to house my mendables?” feeling. Don’t you?

Technorati Tags: sewing,mending

Cats make you lazy

It’s hard to get anything done when you’re surrounded by this:

 

 

And this:

 

It’s a miracle I got all the laundry done before I succumbed to the napping.

 

Technorati Tags: critters,kitties,cats,tiger,turvy,cat nap

Wal-Mart Pharmacy = Awesome

Do you get your prescription medication at Wal-Mart? No? FOR GOD’S SAKE WHY NOT?

I started a new medication a month ago and purchased it at Walgreens as per usual. (They have a drive-thru after all.) $29.99 didn’t seem all that expensive in light of the horror stories I’ve heard lately about $700 prescriptions for a 30-day supply. But we switched to a high deductible health plan at work this year so the first $2,500 comes straight out of my pocket. I thought it prudent to shop around. After all, $29.99 x 12 months = $360 a year.

I decided to check out Wal-Mart's advertized $4 prescriptions, thinking my medication would of course not be on the list, but it was. Check out the Wal-Mart Retail Prescription Program Drug List to see if your medications are too.

Not only do I save $25.99 a month – that’s $312 a year people! – but I can get a 90-day prescription for $10, saving another $2 per refill AND two trips to Wal-Mart. (Seriously, if I have to actually get out of my car and walk inside, the fewer trips the better. Wal-Mart is a zoo. Everyone knows that.) So with the additional $2 savings by filling my prescription every 90 days instead of every month, I save a total of $320 a year. THREE HUNDRED and twenty dollars!

Imagine what I could buy with that money…or put it in savings like a good girl, which is perhaps wiser but certainly not as much fun.

I don’t get it though. How is it possible Wal-Mart can charge $40 a year while Walgreens charges $360 a year for the same medication? Is their volume really that much greater? Never mind, I don’t care. DON’T CARE, I TELL YOU. I’ll take my $320 and say thank you very much.

I even transferred the prescription online so I didn’t have to run around town picking up paperwork and dropping it off at the new pharmacy. There were a few glitches, however. The first had to do with Wal-Mart's email notification system. I immediately received this email:

Thank you for your Wal-Mart Pharmacy order, which you will find summarized below. You will receive an email update within four hours.

It was Sunday. Four hours later, I received an email with this in the Subject:

Your Wal-Mart Pharmacy Order is Ready for Pickup

I was quite impressed. Filled already on Sunday? Well done! My enthusiasm was premature, however. When I showed up on Monday to pick it up – walked inside, discovered the pharmacy closes 12:30-1:30, waited in line for 10 minutes behind 6 other people – I was told they had to contact my doctor to approve the transfer so my prescription had not yet been filled. When I went back and read the body of the email, the status read “processing.” Lesson learned: don’t just read the Subject because it may LIE. Read the entire email.

Bother.

It wasn’t a complete waste of time, however. The pharmacy tech told me about the 90-days for $10 thing so I was able to have my doctor call it in before they filled the original 30-day prescription.

The second glitch had to do with the doctor’s office and the girl on the phone who got me all confused and annoyed with bad information, then called back to say never mind. Though the doctor was able to call the initial prescription in to Walgreens a month ago, because I was transferring it to a new pharmacy, the doctor would have to fill out some form in triplicate and I would have to physically pick it up and deliver it to Wal-Mart, thereby nullifying the whole do-it-online-and-not-have-to-run-around-town convenience.

No, they can’t fax it.

Yes, it has to be done this way due to the type of drug.

She finally called back – 3 hours later – to say my dosage was small enough they didn’t need to fill out the form so the doctor had already called it in.

Since I have been on this medication a little over 3 weeks now, the snafu didn’t bother me as much as as I thought it would. A month ago I would have been pissed for the entire 3 hours. Instead, I was mildly annoyed my ingenious plan was foiled by bureaucratic ridiculousness but it only lasted about 5 minutes. Then I got back to work and forgot all about it.

When she finally called to tell me it was all for naught, I thought to myself, “They really need to give their people better training.” A month ago, I would have thought she was an idiot and seriously considered changing doctors because mine is obviously incompetent if that is the caliber of people she hires.

The miracle of modern medicine. Got Prozac?

 

Technorati Tags: prozac,fluoxetine,walmart pharmacy,walmart $4 prescriptions,walmart $10 90-day prescriptions,mental health

Cats are hazardous to your health

I fell flat on my face the other night. I blame the cats.

I got up to turn the thermostat down but didn’t bother to turn on a light because it’s only a few steps from my bedroom and has its own internal illumination.

Then I fell down.

Here’s why:

I forget the cats use the hallway as a racetrack and I no longer use mats to keep the rugs in place because, frankly, they don’t.

The only thing I hurt was my pride – and my big toe – though I did get a bit of revenge when I inadvertently hit this on the way down:

The cats already run when the regular doorbell rings so you can imagine the panic that ensued when the chimes started clanging into each other willy nilly at 2 am.

Revenge is sweet.

I don’t know why I was surprised at the rug incident. After all, this is how I often found the rug in my bedroom when I lived with my sister:

Actually, I think I inadvertently trapped a kitty in the closet and this was a silent plea for help, but you get the idea.

Needless to say, I no longer have rugs in the hallway.

 

Technorati Tags: cats,cat antics,kitties,cats and rugs

Feeling better…

Tony the PT Nazi didn’t crack my bones this week. So disappointing.

I forgot all about it while I was there, actually, what with all the sweating and groaning and learning to perform the spine mobilization exercises standing up instead of on hands and knees as my wrists go numb.

My neck feels ever so slightly better this week. Finally. My thumb still tingles at times but not as often and I can make it stop by sitting up straight and stretching my neck to the opposite side. I’m so happy it is a muscle thing and not a squashed disc/bone thing!

So.

I’m fairly certain my problems stem from sitting in front of a computer all day with my arm attached to a mouse, then coming home and draping myself across the couch to watch Miss Marple DVD’s all evening.

I should get some exercise.

Yes. Yes I should.

I tried taking up AM Yoga with Rodney Yee again but some of the movements made my thumb go numb so Tony the PT Nazi told me to stick with the exercises he gives me for now.

After telling me at my first session to do any exercise I want. Hm. I’m pretty sure I saw a faint thought bubble with the words, “Dear god get off the couch!” hovering above his head at the time so maybe he was just trying to be encouraging. I call him a PT Nazi but he is really quite friendly and polite and would never say such a thing out loud.

Just as I would never call him a PT Nazi to his face.

It is also the end of week 3 on anti-depressants and I notice a slight lift in my mood. Too soon? They are supposed to take 4 to 6 weeks to kick in so could this be a mere placebo effect? The simple result of finally taking action to feel better and DOING SOMETHING? Whatever it is, I don’t care. I’ll take it.

So there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I just hope it’s not a train.

 

Technorati Tags: neck pain,physical therapy

Tax planning strategy: die this year

George Steinbrenner had an estimated $1.15 billion dollar estate when he died July 13, 2010.

George Steinbrenner’s heirs will pay no estate tax. Zero. Nada. Nil.

Why? Because Bush made it so with his 2001 tax cuts and Congress can’t get its shit together to close the one year loophole. Had Steinbrenner died last year, his estate would have been subject to a 45% tax rate. The rate goes up to 55% next year but is 0% for 2010.

So the take-away is if you’re feeling poorly and have a gazillion dollar estate, make sure to die before midnight on December 31, 2010. Unless you don’t like your heirs, in which case by all means hang on until 12:01am January 1, 2011, to sock them with the 55% estate tax.

Hat tip to G for sending me the Steinbrenner article that reminded why I love tax work: because it makes no sense whatsoever.

 

Technorati Tags: estate tax,2010 estate tax holiday,george steinbrenner,tax follies

Duma Key, A Novel by Stephen King (Audiobook)

Imagine you have never read a Stephen King novel. Or perhaps you have read a few – say The Shining and a handful of short stories – but his movies scare the bajeebies out of you so you avoid anything Stephen King at all costs.

Or do you?

Much of King’s work has been adapted for film and television, at times with the creepy, supernatural content excised. Dolores Claiborne and The Shawshank Redemption come to mind. Did you know those are Stephen King works? I read Dolores Claiborne after seeing the film and…Surprise!…supernatural dust bunnies found nowhere in the film version.

Regardless of horror content, King’s writing is engaging and down to earth. You feel what the characters feel. You want to be their friend and learn more about them. You want to help them get through the ordeal facing them and, with King, it is always a doozie.

Duma Key lives up to that, with the added bonus of being written after King was struck by a van while taking his daily walk and nearly killed. The main character suffers a similarly devastating accident, and you cannot help but wonder how much of the trauma, anger, pain, and rehabilitation described in the book King actually experienced during his recovery. I was not distracted by the wondering. For me, it added dimension and believability to every aspect of main character Edgar Freemantle’s rehabilitation.

An excerpt from the book jacket at StephenKing.com to introduce you to some of the characters:

A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a "geographic cure," a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else.

"Edgar, does anything make you happy?"

"I used to sketch."

"Take it up again. You need hedges . . . hedges against the night."

Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key.

Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating.

The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural--Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.

The book breaks down into three parts:

1. Edgar’s first life in Minnesota, where we get a retrospective account of his accident and experience the beginning of his rehabilitation and the end of his marriage;
    
2. Edgar’s second life in Florida, where he discovers his talent as an artist and we meet several colorful characters central to the remainder of the story;
    
3. The creepy horror stuff King is known for.
    

Reviewers who pan the book complain the story is boring because nothing happens until the last third of the book. And by “nothing happens,” they mean there is no horror of the likes found in King’s previous works. That is completely true for those looking for chill up your spine, hold me and inadvertently touch my boob horror.

There is, however, horror of the normal, every day, it-could-actually-happen kind of horror, which makes it all the more disturbing. Without spoiling the story for those who have not yet read it, let me say that when I read the book again, I will skip the parts about Monica Goldstein and Tina Garibaldi. They are too graphic, too real, too “this is why I don’t watch the news” for me but they are an integral part of the story. They are not presented in the book as surprises or Big Reveals so I don’t think I am spoiling anything for you by mentioning them here.

At this point, I want to mention the most important thing I can tell you about this book: DON’T READ IT. Not at first anyway.

What I mean is: listen to the audiobook read by John Slattery. It makes all the difference. If you want to go back and read the book later, by all means do so, but by then the characters will be alive in your mind the way Slattery presented them. Dialogue that comes across as forced or just plain odd in the book makes perfect sense when you hear it from Slattery.

My only complaints about this story have to do with foreshadowing and plausibility.

Foreshadowing is where the author suggests, or in this case outright tells you about, plot developments that come later in the story. Much later, as it happens. It creates suspense, which I suppose is the point, but is still MOST ANNOYING.

Plausibility or believability is tough to complain about when you are talking about Stephen King and his spooky, supernatural creations. One MUST suspend disbelief to some extent. It’s just too bad we have to actually meet the monsters in the third part of the book. Terror is so much more delicious when confined to our imagination. I found the physical monsters a bit of a let down.

It is the non-supernatural implausibility, however, that sticks in my craw. Hopefully without giving too much away, let me say that if I was a one-armed man, I would be telling my two armed friend to get his ass down in the dark and scary hole with me to battle evil, not proclaim I must do it all by myself.

But then it wouldn’t be as suspenseful and fun, would it?

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Listen to Duma Key on audiobook rather than read the book, at least at first. John Slattery’s rendition is spot on. Stephen King fans looking for fast-paced horror, stay away. You will be bored out of your mind. An intriguing peek inside the mind of a man recovering from horrific physical trauma, as Stephen King had done. How much is real and how much is storytelling? Several quirky characters to fall in love with, then cry when they die. (It is Stephen King, after all.)

 

 Disclaimer: I purchased this product on my own and was not compensated for this review.

 

Technorati Tags: Stephen King,Duma Key,book review

 

Duma Key audiobook at Audible.com

Amazon.com: all versions of the book (paperback, hard cover, CD, Kindle, etc.):

Mail Order Malady

The classic camel pump I ordered has zero arch support. In fact, the arch of my foot doesn’t even touch the shoe bed. It just hovers over it like a UFO trying to decide who to abduct first.

So I will be sending it back. The downside of mail order: you have to buy it before you can try it on.

And they were just the right color, too.

 

Technorati Tags: camel pumps,high heel shoe woes,mail order maladies

Crack yer bones!

I was doing the neck stabilization exercises wrong.

WRONG!

My neck has been sore because I was applying too much force, but dude, I wanted to feel the muscles working.

::sigh::

So now I place only the pads of two fingers against my head instead of my palm. Due to my previous overzealousness, I feel my neck muscles working with just the slightest amount of pressure so I guess it’s all good.

Though I still feel like Carnac the Magnificent when I do them.

Tony the PT Nazi piled on more exercises and just as I was thinking JESUS GOD when am I going to find time to do all this, he said I only have to do them once a day. When he found out I was doing last week’s exercises 3 times a day, he tried not to laugh. He was unsuccessful.

He said he only has people perform the exercises once a day because if they think they’re supposed to do them more, they often can’t fit them into their busy schedule, get discouraged, and don’t do them at all. So once a day is sufficient, and I can even break them up and do them a few at a time at different times throughout the day.

Then he cracked my bones.

I’ve only been to a chiropractor once a long time ago so I forgot how bizarre it is to have someone crack your bones. He said it shouldn’t hurt, to which I replied I would prefer “wouldn’t,” and then he was nervous. Smart, Sheila, real smart: make the big man who can crush you with his bare hands nervous. Well done.

But he didn’t crush me. He had me cross my arms over a rolled up towel, “roll a little towards me,” rocked me back and forth a bit while pressing his weight down on my crossed arms and then did something – I have no idea what – and CRACK! And it didn’t hurt a bit.

He said he would crack me in a different location next week and I begged and begged him to do it now because I wanted to hear the noise again but he said no.

Party pooper.

__________________________________________________________________

Photo credit: Wikipedia

 

Technorati Tags: physical therapy,neck pain,crack your bones