Medicare???

Yep, it is almost time for me to make all those Medicare decisions.  Ugh!  Oddly thinking of Medicare is making me feel older than thinking about the actual birthday.  Maybe it is because I've had so much experience having birthdays!  To be truthful, the Medicare part isn't so bad but figuring out the add-ons is a giant pain in the you know where.  Of course it is made worse by the fact that we live 'over the hump'.  In a city like Las Vegas there are lots of choices.  Here, not so much. 

Here we get to choose between Humana and something called Senior Dimensions.  (Why they would name their company something so close to Senior Dementia is beyond me!)  Humana is called a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO); Senior Dimensions (SD) calls itself an HMO-POS.  In the HMO you go to doctors in their company; the POS is supposed to let you visit doctors outside the plan at additional cost.

Humana is a bit more expensive than SD but they are accepted by the doctors I've been seeing for the five years we've lived here.  With SD I'd be saving some money but would be seeing new people.  I seldom visit the doctor so maybe it's no big deal.  We also need to figure out what goes on when we travel; either in the U.S. or overseas.  Reading all the fine print is just else something to get aggravated about.  Glad I don't have blood pressure problems!

Aside from all that, we are continuing on our nice warm summer.  Most days it is around 105F (40C) and doesn't cool off enough to open the house at night.  We take our daily walk at 06:00 to avoid most of the heat.  The mountains are pretty then; all gold from the rising sun.  I thought I'd taken photos of the sunrise but apparently not!  Maybe tomorrow. 

I signed up for this free site, Duolingo, which attempts to teach English speakers various European languages and vice versa.  It was invented by the guy who came up with those little squiggly words you have to type for leaving comments, etc.  The site is kind of fun but between my atrocious typing and my spelling (which isn't good in English!) it's going to be slow going!  I'd love to be able to speak and understand a couple other languages even at the level of a three year old. 

That's all the whining you'll hear from me today.  Thanks for checking in.  Hope you have a good one.

Free plug: I love The Economist

We've been receiving The Economist on and off for a few years.  It describes itself as a newspaper; here in the U.S. it would be called a news magazine because of it's format.  Regardless, I love reading it.  It's only drawback for me is that I have difficulty finding the time to read it all.  Yep, even old retired guys have time constraints. 

Today I discovered a great part of their website:  the style section.  Not only do they do a great job of suggesting ways of improving one's writing, they do it with, ... wait for it..., style.  Sorry, couldn't help myself!  Spicing things up are some of the quotes from great writers:  "In general, be concise. Try to be economical in your account or argument (“The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out”—Voltaire)."  My God, how I wish some people I know would read and take to heart that quote from Voltaire!  The only section that troubles me is the part insisting on British spellings:  labour, etc.  But that is a quibble.  It is, of course, a British publication. 

What I like most about it is that it covers the entire world.  American news magazines are too U.S. centric for my taste.  I like hearing what is happening in Uganda or Ecuador; I like reading about Renault's business even though they don't sell cars in this country.  The world is getting smaller by the minute and I want to know as much about it as my limited intelligence will let me grasp.

One last quote from the style section:  "Keep complicated constructions and gimmicks to a minimum, if necessary by remembering the New Yorker's comment: “Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind.”"