Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

I usually my days by going for a walk or bike ride. Yesterday was such a lovely day for a walk but this morning it was cold, with the thermometer showing that it was 40ºF. As I get older, the idea of riding my bike when it’s that cold grows less appealing. So I bundled up and went for a walk.
 
 While I wasn’t stopped by motorists looking for directions to a Pop Warner game this morning, I did have a pleasant yet brief chat with a man getting to spend the day working in the woods behind the cornfield at the top of the hill shown in the picture below. He was getting ready to join others and do some logging. They’ve been working the woods back there for a couple of days. He was very pleasant and asked how far I walk each morning.
 
 It’s good to enjoy a brief conversation with a complete stranger without having to do it in 140 characters or less. Many seem to have forgotten how to communicate or are afraid that their neighbor is a terrorists spitting out Ebola all over the place. It was nice to have speak with someone who wasn’t afraid to speak to a passerby on the street.
 

I’m just back from an hour long walk in the neighborhood. I walked around our block. Because we live in a somewhat rural area, walking around the block is nearly five miles. I feel great after the exercise. 

I’ve mentioned before that power lines criss-cross our area. We are near the geographical center of the state and many of the higher voltage power lines come together here to a couple of large switching stations. Power from Niagara Falls, southern Québec and a number of local power plants of various shapes and sizes gets distributed to other parts of the region from here. 

These guys bring power in from Niagara Falls.

There are spacers along the lines. When you walk under the lines you can hear snapping, crackling and popping noises coming from the spacers.

Not too far from our property is the railroad line that goes from Utica to just south of Old Forge in the Adirondacks. The Adirondack Scenic Railroad is a popular tourist attraction, especially at this time of year. Leaf peepers love to peep at the brilliant autumn colors one finds in the Adirondacks.

During my walk I was stopped by six different vehicles. Apparently there is a big Pop Warner football game at the local town park but folks didn’t know where the park was located. I gave them directions that would be easy to remember. I hope they have a good time up there at the game.

During my work day at home I often go for a 15-20 minute walk in the morning and again in the afternoon. My walk involves walking along the shoulder of our fairly busy road because we don’t live in an area with sidewalks. I’m not sure that I would want to live in an area with sidewalks, what with being a farm boy at heart and all that.

Traditionally, not having a sidewalk hasn’t really been an issue; folks would simply move over a little bit to give the pedestrian a little bit of breathing space. However, I have noticed that over the past year or so, people haven’t been driving in as friendly a manner down the road and they’re driving a lot faster. I need to leave the shoulder of the road and take refuge in the adjacent lawn at least three or four times a week. This makes my walk less enjoyable than it is intended to be.

The county Department of Works must have noticed that tendency of motorists speeding down the hill as well, because a week ago they added an electronic speed indicating sign. Random observations during my walk have confirmed my suspicions. People are driving faster than the posted 45 MPH speed limit.

I’ve noticed that quite a few drivers are slamming on their brakes when they see that they’re exceeding the speed limit by 10 or 15 MPH. I fully believe that they’re afraid that the display has some sort of camera embedded in it, but I don’t believe that it does. I think it’s just a velocity indicator and nothing more.

Nevertheless, I wish people would use some common sense and slow down just a little bit to keep our quasi-rural area somewhat enjoyable. Actually, I wish people would just start using common sense, period. But I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon.

So earlier this year my primary physician awarded me a year’s supply of Norvasc, a medication used to treat high blood pressure. As my luck would have it, he has the pharmacy dish this out on a monthly basis, however, as I mentioned, I did win a year’s supply. Earl likes to call this my distemper medication.

Shortly after starting the Norvasc, I received a letter from the administrator of the company prescription plan, advising me that I needed to get routine and regular medications in 90 day increments by mail. I was discouraged from using the local pharmacy, because apparently that’s a more expensive proposition. I was told to go online, use the provided credentials to register with the mail-order company, and then I would reap the savings in medical costs.

The website is wonky at best.

The provided credentials don’t work.

I lost interest.

Squirrel!

I decided to ignore the directive from the company prescription drug program and stick with the local pharmacy. The cost varies from month to month and I end up paying anywhere from $6.00 to $9.95. The name of the mail-order prescription drug company is emblazoned across the label from the local pharmacy, so this tells me that somehow the local pharmacy and the mail-order provider are in cahoots.

Despite the cahoots, I continue to receive letters from the company insurance provider, reminding me that effective the next refill, my prescription price will skyrocket unless I use the mail-order plan. This has been going on for months. Tonight I refilled my prescription at the local pharmacy and it went from $9.50 to $4.75.

Somehow, somewhere, the cahoots are on my side.

I don’t know how people with crappy medical plans, well crappier medical plans than what we have at work, and multiple medications, keep all of this rigamarole straight. It’s bad enough that I have a deductible on my body, like I’m made up of front fenders and rear quarter panels, but I’m sorry, I’m not going to rely on the US Postal Service to deliver my medications in a timely manner. They can’t even get a package from 75 miles away to my house in less than a week, and even then the tracking information indicates that it’s been routed through Bogalusa, Louisiana on it’s way from one Upstate New York city to another, why on earth would I trust them to get my medication on time.

Once upon a time we relied on our friendly neighborhood pharmacist. I refuse to give and I will continue to do so.

Yesterday Earl and I raised $185 for the Ali Forney Center in New York, an organization that helps provide housing for homeless LGBT youth. A couple of years ago I raised money by shaving off my awesome ‘stache, this year Earl and I had a garage sale and donated all the proceeds to a worthy cause.

Having a garage sale is weird to me, because it strikes me odd that people would want stuff that we are trying to get rid of. Nevertheless, several friends came over and perused through our wares and took home some stuff and we had some folks just stop by after seeing the sign we had out on the front lawn. We didn’t have any prices on the items for sale, we just asked that folks donate what they thought was a fair price. It would seem that folks were quite generous.

We still have quite a bit of stuff out in the garage so I think we are going to have another garage sale next weekend. If you’re in Central New York and interested in stopping by, feel free to drop me a line so I can give you the coordinates of our location.