Disability Insurance

I received a call from the disability office stating that I was not eligible for our states disability insurance. It's the one that I've paid into for 25 plus years and they're advising me that I cannot receive payments because I'm already receiving "sick pay" from my employer at my part-time rate. Living in California, we either pick up massive hours to compensate for the rent or mortgage and other necessities that we need to survive or have two jobs. I have the latter where as I am able to pick up large amounts of hours to where I am able to compensate my part time hours into full-time. So why won't they pay me? Because picking up hours is not my "customary work schedule"!! Heck, they should have told me that before going on disability. I would have upped my status, if possible, to full time and THEN taken disability. That would have made better sense. So it makes me think, why pay into a system when they can't help you, even with an appeal. What do all the other part-timers do in this situation? Just venting, thanks for listening!

You still have to work!!

That's the story I tell all of my very close friends at work when I come home from Las Vegas and didn't win the mega millions. Truth be told, if i won the multi millions, i would take care of my family first and my closest and dearest friends next. The ones that come out of the woodwork, you would have to go through my daughter who is the most scrutinizing woman I know. And that's being nice, she takes good care of me...thank you Nani.

As far as my RA is concerned, I'm still ticking! My doctor is trying to reschedule our appointments so that I could get into the next phase of my medication taking. I'm not sure about the herbal methods and i understand that it's much healthier. I'm still reading up on them and keep an open mind. I'm doing the juicer thing and have cut out red meats with the exception of bacon and spam, this Hawaiian gal still loves that stuff. I'm drinking a lot of water and teas. I've slowly switched from white rice to brown rice but i won't turn down a bowl if you offered it to me. We eat chicken and fish on some days. Soup and salads on a lot of days. I love my crock pot! My medications are currently as follows:

4 methotrexate at 2.5MG tabs (orange) per week - Wed night

1 and 1 half prednisone at 5MG daily in the morning from 4am-8am

1 folic acid 1MG daily

1 Multi-vitamin "Complete Iron System" by Food grown daily

My next appointment will be sometime at the end of this month. I'll keep you updated with that. So far my movements have definitely shown great improvement since i was diagnosed two and half months ago. I was a sad case and knew there was something wrong and made an appointment to see my primary who then referred me to my "RAtologist". It's been a journey! If you have RA or have been recently diagnosed with RA, i welcome your comments and questions. Have a great week everyone.

Ms Dov's wild ride

Here I am in the fabulous city of Las Vegas, Nevada and the one to watch out for is the shuttle drivers at the airport. I was the last stop on a 5 stop ride. My driver was very courteous and personable but as soon as he got behind the steering wheel, it was as if Dr. Jekyll AND Mr Hyde took over. We almost hit a car or two, he had a lead foot that was triggered on both the gas and the brake pedals, scrapped by a few tall hotel bushes, ran over a curb (luckily there was no pedestrian) and picked up other passengers that were going in another direction and collected their fare. I don't know if he called that one in but I was sitting up front and braced myself against my little rolling backpack waiting for an accident to happen. Amid all of the hotel speed bumps that we sped over, i swear that we were airborne for a few seconds. I was dropped off at my hotel in one piece and bid the man goodbye watching him roar off into parts unknown. I think I'll take a taxi back to the airport on my return.

Global Warming

It is mean and unforgiving. It will not listen. It will not go away. It is the salt on an open wound. It will not stop. It is here. It will see us to our end.

Hurricane Katrina didn't happen

My best friend Carmen and her family are Katrina Survivors from New Orleans. They were stuck on the roof of their neighbors house for three sun blazing days and four quiet star filled nights surviving on food and water that "mama Diane" stocked up on throughout the months if not years! Maurice's only wish was that he could take his kitten with him when they were rescued by the local folk there who piloted a boat looking for people that needed help. The boats man dropped them off at a stretch of road that used to be an intersection where the Orleans and Jefferson Parish meet. The Evan's were picked up by a man in a pickup truck who tirelessly shuttled people to where the I-10 meets the freeway, he is a hero. The Evan's were listening to the portable radio about the chaos at the stadium that was in pandemonium with an all out epidemic of lawlessness. The national guards had moved into town to quell the local people's anxiety, stop the looting and their machine guns set to kill. The Evan's stayed away from the stadium and needed to be on those buses heading out to Houston at any cost. Mother, daughter and grandson held onto each other for dear life.
Living in California was nothing new to Carmen who has lived here before and if it wasn't so darn expensive to live here, she would make her home here permanently. Mama had come to visit a few times and Maurice was born here.
So how is it that a car dealership, Putnam Toyota of Burlingame is giving Carmen a hard time with getting her used car repaired? Apparently, the car dealership (Putnam) is not honoring the warranties that she paid for, new car buyer and extended for the repair to take effect. They want her to produce paperwork that states she had service on the car. Ring, Ring?? Don't you have that stored in your high tech computers? In the meantime, her car is being stored at Ron Price Volkswagen of South San Francisco's repair center for the past 5 months and she is making her monthly payments on a car that was priced too high in the first place at 21 percent interest and no they weren't interested that she IS a Katrina survivor! Fellow bloggers, I am pleading my case on behalf of my best friend, send an email to eric@putnamauto.com to have them immediately repair and get her car back to her. The Evan's have been relying on Cal-train, buses and the help of friends to get to and from work, school and doctor's appointments.
Haven't they been through enough?????????