I have to choose between traditional (and very good) insurance vs a high deductible health insurance plan by tomorrow. It would be a no-brainer except that we will have to shell out approximately $100 per month for the traditional plan while the high deductible plan comes with a health savings account (HSA) into which $100 per month will be deposited, and it is portable. So at some level I have to figure out whether I will use more than $2400 of insurance next year.

In other news, life is stressful, I'm behind on everything and I led a pretty crummy board meeting this weekend. And I'm not running enough.

Last year at this time, I felt equally as bad and I regained a lot of equilibrium over Thanksgiving. I hope that happens this year too. If it doesn't, I might run away.

Posting frequency is obviously way down, and that's largely because the novelty index is down too these days. The progress of the oddly demarcated seasons here remains interesting to me, but perhaps not so much to you any more. I also am spending a lot of time and thought these days with a bunch of fictional characters, and it's neither helpful to me nor interesting to you if I write about them here instead of in the places where they belong.

There's a door handle on a meeting room here at work that looks like it should turn, but it doesn't. It's just a handle for pushing.

I've been a little prickly in the nose and sore-throaty lately, with a bit of a cough; experiencing some attendant paranoia but basically otherwise fine.

The cottage in the back still isn't rented. Scott the landlord is getting pretty worried.

Today I am mostly sad about Sunny, who is a dog only a handful of you know. I'm about to leave the building early, run a few time-sensitive errands, and finish the day from home.

I think it's the fact that the word "Hospice" to most people means "Imminent Death," or at least "Unpleasant Eventual Death" that kicked me in the junk today.

Grandma's not doing well. She's getting Hospice care more because the Fam's been trading shifts staying with her 24/7 and they just need help, but damnation, how about giving people details as things progress so a step like this doesn't have the makings for a shit-losing moment, huh?

I got the word from my Cousin in Minnesota who only heard because she happened to call her parents. She was incredibly freaked out by the word "Hospice."

Hospice.

I think the Universe owes Hospice workers a lottery win or two for what they do, because God knows it must suck, and because this is the reaction most people have to the mention of the word.

Right now, they've asked folks not to come by to visit to minimize the risk of Grandma catching anything, because at this stage even a cold, much less the flu, could be catastrophic. So imagine my fury over having a normally non-contagious tonsillitis that's apparently a resistant strain, but that could with a kiss on the cheek or close contact be spread to someone in her condition. I can call, but I'm basically (and rightly) physically verboten at this point.

Spleen vented. More another time.

Do people still use you?