diary of an Endorphin Junkie

It's another cloudy morning but the sun is trying to break through. My plan is finish this entry, make the bed, layout clothes and then go swimming but if it is full on glary sun by then, maybe not. Or maybe I'll try it.

The letter from the IRS was weird. The transcripts on their website show clearly that a refund is due me but the letter, not so much. They both agree on the exact numbers. So I called. Or, rather, tried to call. There were a couple of numbers in the letter to call if I had questions. Then there's the main 1040 line. I tried, in vane, to get to a person to ask. That's 40 minutes I'll never see again. I finally found some tricks on Reddit but by that time, I had lost my will to live. Fuck it. If I get a check, great. If I get a bill, I know where my CPA is.

I'm hoping to hear from Crate and Barrel soon about the new cushion for my couch. They said mid September and we are there. And my couch really needs that cushion. Of course, they will call and then I will bitch about having to go over to Bellevue to pick it up.

On the up side, I did have a very pleasant experience with my new Chase checking account. I got the debit card yesterday and while waiting for my house cleaner to finish, I got on my phone to activate it. easy peasy but then it said, do you want to add this to your digital wallet? Well, sure. It gave me 3 to chose from - Google, Apple and Samsung. And then a couple of questions to answer and bam, it was in and ready to use! Very cool. I've been trying for a while to get my BECU stuff in there - neither debit nor Visa will get past their verification process which sucks. So, fuck 'em. I've got a nice backup now. Thank you.

Nothing special going on today. We have a good puzzle going in the elbow and both my baseball teams play today so that's pretty much the agenda.

Guess I'll go get everything done and then go swim. The sun is still not out so maybe I'll get lucky!

My email this morning from USPS telling me what will be in the snail mail today, shows a letter from the IRS.

In November of 2024, I found a CPA and had him review my returns for 2022 and 2023. He prepared amended returns for both years that called for big refunds. His fee for this came out to about 10% of the refunds. A nice score. 2023's refund came relatively quickly - a month or so after filing. But, 2022 has been hanging out there for now nearly a year. I keep getting letters saying 'it's taking more time, we need 90 more days'. So my first thought, of course, was that they were telling me 90 more days.

BUT, I logged into my IRS account and looked at my transcripts for 2022 and BINGO they show a refund payment on 9/22 so this letter must be saying it's coming. The refund is for 1/3rd more than the actual refund due because they are returning penalty money and paying interest for. Very sweet indeed.

The money is going right into my June 2026 fund. My brother and his son are both coming to visit and see the Red Sox/Mariners games. I'm told them I'd provide the financing for their expenses. This will cover it all very nicely.

Last night's Mariners game was interesting. Instead of the usual cast of annoying broadcasters, the regular guy was joined by Dave Valle who was one of my all time favorite catchers. He provided interesting insight and conversation. And they won. Pretty nice.

My lava lamp died. RIP

I watched episode 1 of Task - HBO/Max. It was good. Good story line, great characters, interesting treatments. It's a once a week drop and I'm really looking forward to next Sunday. Jeopardy is on Peacock today with an interesting mix of streaming weirdness. Apparently episodes are only available for 6 days and then disappear. Also the last four seasons are missing. Weird but fine. I do like watching it during lunch.

Hazel's handing out my little knitted people/monsters to everyone in the nursing wing. 'It's a great way to visit with some of these people there who never get any visitors.' I'm very glad to help.

Boston has a city council election today. It's a "preliminary" election, which is like a non-partisan primary, for a bunch of at-large seats. It's easy to find out which candidates approve of bike lanes and which want them ripped out. It's not that much harder to find out which one supports Trump. It's remarkably hard to figure out how any of them regard ICE or sanctuary-city policies. I did find a candidate who wants the city to clear snow and ice from old people's sidewalks as a safety measure, but Vicki is sure that's not a figure of speech.

And, we're done. With Summer, that is. In the 10 day forecast, there are no days when the high goes over 75 and a couple of days when it does not get to 70. Whew. Nice. Also the night time lows start to dip into the 40's and I can open my bedroom window again. Julio will be quite excited. He loves the window open and so do I.

I was able to cancel all Key Bank accounts via text and it didn't even take that long and the agent didn't even ask me why. Success.

I have a couple of errands to run but nothing critical and I will probably put them off until tomorrow when house cleaning is here.

Today feels like it needs to be lazy. At least this morning. This afternoon is the first aqua stretch class. Should be interesting.

It has taken me two hours to write this - stopping to fall down rabbit holes and find out what crashed in the bathroom then cleaning out the litter box, etc. So clearly, I've got nothing critical to say this morning. Time to post.

I learned a while back that when you reach for the superglue, also reach for the acetone. It scares the superglue into not glueing everything in a 1 foot radius of your target. Science. I promise.

I have a big toe with a problem nail. It's been a problem for a lot of years and I think it's about 6-9 months away from growing back to no problem. But, it takes some babying. There's a vertical split half way down. What I'm shooting for now is keeping it from snagging on my pants or the sheets or my socks and encouraging to grow out perfectly. This morning, I cut, filed and could not get it totally unsnaggy so superglue. gel.

Application 1 was a success. Later on, I'll get a piece of teabag and glue it to the whole nail. With the acetone within reach.

My swim was really good. It's really helping my back/leg issues. And I'm enjoying it.

The pool is reserved today from 2-5. Butch (who lives with his wife in the other wing) is turning 90. They have invited all their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to a pool birthday party! I love that. If I were a little kid forced to come to an old folks home for a yawn-adult party, I'd be instantly perked by the idea of the pool. With no lifeguard!!

Laundry is laundrying. The Mariners are up 9-0 over the Braves in the 3th. And I have meatloaf for a sandwich for lunch.

My food money has to be used up by Wednesday and I got a bright idea yesterday. Every night, as an option, they have plain grilled chicken, plain grilled salmon and meatloaf. You can add sides or just get the cooked meat/fish. Last night I ordered the meatloaf and for $10 I got enough for four sandwiches. SCORE!! This is an idea that will be repeated, probably monthly.

The Mariners game is on Roku. So they have some low rent non-denominational broadcaster with a Mariners broadcaster (the one I like the least) and it is painful to listen to. So I'm doing the radio/TV combo. They are also doing to the 'interview the player out in the field WHILE HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYING THE GAME' SOOOOOOO stupid. I have Closed captions on. The game is going on and these two broadcasting yahoos are talking to this Braves outfielder about his fucking tropical fish. OMG. Time to turn on the Phillies game.

If I were a programmer, I would write a program that disabled any opening of any link that used the words in this headline - together or separably. Once in a while, mostly on my phone, I click by accident and then RUSH to clear my cache. I don't want to be any part of any reward or payoff to the assholes who perpetrate.

There's my morning rant for you :)

Other than that, I don't got much.

The Mariner game starts at 9. The Phillies game starts closer to 11. It's now 8. But, there's no sun out. So I think I'll just hop into my suit and go swim before all the action.

Elbow Coffee was an hour of biting my tongue. But, except for one time, I did good. Joan told everyone that yesterday Seattle's air quality was the worst in the world. This is very much not true. The worst air quality listed for Seattle yesterday was Moderate. And I said so. Seattle has had the worst air in the world - in past years. Not, so far this year.

But, otherwise, the whole time Jim (the other Jim) was describing his TV issues (Xfinity gave him a new box and he couldn't get the channel he wanted (it's a streaming channel and he does not have the TV connected to wifi), I kept my mouth shut. If he had asked, I would have explained but he didn't so zipped lips. An Ingrid can't get email because 'my system is Yahoo and Yahoo says I have too much.' Jim (same Jim) said usually messages like that include and offer to sell you a solution. To which Ingrid replied 'well of course they did but I'm not going to pay them an extra $2 a month!!' My trap? Shut. Completely.

I was winding yarn into balls so my head was down and I kept my face totally neutral.

We have a new puzzle in the elbow today. But I have a baseball game at 1 and one at 4 so not a whole lot of time!

Last night, Hazel came in for help. She had, earlier in the day, brought John over to the apartment and he could not get his Fox news on the TV. Only Netflix (which is her channel). The most difficult part was understanding what the problem was. The answer was the cable box had been turned off. Hit that button and all was fine. She thinks I'm a genius.

Just now, Jim, knocked on the door and needed me. Jim moved in just after I did. He's been on a neurological decline ever since. His ability to articulate is nearly gone. Today, he poked his head in and said he needed me. I said here? or your place? My place. So we went over. And here was the conversation:

Me: So the problem is the TV?
Yeah, this is what I want [pointing to the TV] but I can't get it.
I got up and got something and when I got back, this [pointing to the TV] is all. And, nothing has changed [pointing to the coffee table].

Jim, where's your clicker? Your remote?
Oh, I have to find that. And he immediately opens his refrigerator.

I looked around and spied it on the desk next to his computer.

Is this the missing link? Now will it do what you want? I put the remote in his hands and he punched a few buttons.

You are a genius.

I am kind of proud that I cracked the case with so few clues.

I crawled into bed last night looking forward to continuing my book - a Scottish police procedural read in this wonder Scottish accent... only to discover my brother had returned it (he thought he was the one who had checked it out) and now it's not available. I have to wait in line... again! My brother and nephew and I share a Libby account with three libraries to pick from. It often works fine but once in a while, it does not. Grrrrrrr

I texted the two of them to ask them please not to do that any more. And heard back from my nephew. We had a lovely chat. He wants to come visit next June when the Red Sox are here to play the Mariners. That should be fun!

Much fog this morning. I got up and had coffee and internetted. I was not really all that interested in swimming but figured I'd go anyway and then stop and pick up the menu for next week and my package in the Amazon locker.

There's a COVID outbreak in the nursing/assisted care/memory units. Ugh.

The swim turned out better than I expected. I was glad I went. I got the menu and totally forgot the package. Oh well, more steps won't kill me.

Tuesday starts legit streaming of Jeopardy and I'm beyond excited. I've been watching it via illegal YouTube uploads for about a year. I will miss the janky recordings, the Arabian ads, and the hit or miss availability of the show. Actually, no, I won't miss those at all. But I do appreciate their efforts.

Both my baseball teams play at 4 today. The Mariners need to start winning.

Biggie's into his morning nap and Julio is playing with his laser toy. I think I'll get dressed and go get that package.

The two things I need to do today are play volleyball and distribute the Timber Ridge Times on my little hallway. Done and done.

I saw yesterday that the aqua yoga class has now been renamed aqua stretch. All the things - class schedules and descriptions and the calendar have all been changed. Interesting. Our first class since the change is Monday. Be fun to see if they have more changes there.

In other big news, tonight is pizza night at the buffet. They make very very good pizza here and I have meal bucks to spend so I will be at least doubling up and maybe tripling up on the pizza dinner and stocking the freezer.

I saw John yesterday. He has probably lost 25% of his body weight. His smile is the same size, though.

Bonny needed to buy a bunch of birthday and other cards for people here in our neighborhood. She's taken over that job from Joan and, I must say, really stepped up to the plate and has been doing a good job. She had gone to Target and was appalled to see that the cheap cards were $6. "Will you go with me to the Dollar store?" hahaha She's always bragged that she's never been there. So for the second day in a row, I went to Dollar Tree. Bonny was impressed. She got a boatload of cards and a Happy Birthday sign. $10.63. She is now a Dollar Tree advocate. I will say that their $.50 card aisle is pretty rich in selection and quality.

I had two baseball games yesterday at the same time - one on the computer and one on the TV. They sucked neck and neck until the very end. Yikes. Today only the Phillies play.

And that's it so far today from the cult. I need to get dressed and go out and finish up the puzzle in the elbow. There are only about 100 pieces left so it won't take long.

The laundry is laundrying, the dishwasher will be washing as soon as I get up and put this plate in. Half the fog is gone but I got a swim in while it was still sunless. I had the pool to myself and it was lovely.

My bank swap seems to be going well. I need the initial funds to show as available in the new Chase account and then I can close out Key Bank entirely. They are showing as pending now. Should be able to get it all done by Friday.

My return phone hit a bit of a UPS snag over the weekend but it, too, looks like it will hit Google tomorrow and, hopefully, I'll have my refund shortly thereafter.

I have the final episode of Hostage (Netflix) to watch. I could have watched it yesterday but I didn't want to rush it. Great little series. I do love Suranne Jones.

Now the sun is breaking through. So glad I already got my swim in!

Growing up in the South East, sweater weather didn't even think about starting until November. (My first winter in Minnesota, it snowed the first week of November.)

But, when I first moved to this part of the country more than 30 years ago, Fall began the day after Labor Day. It was so weird. It was like someone flipped a switch. The week before was sunny and too hot and then on Tuesday, you needed a sweater. Global warming has put the kibosh on that. We have some more hot weather coming but this morning, Tuesday, it is cool and cloudy and even foggy out. Lovely. Alas, it's supposed to get up to 78.

Today is house cleaner day and I think I'll go the the dollar store while she is here. I have a dollar store list so I can just pound that out.

Only one baseball game today and it's not til 4.

Key Bank bit off my last nerve. I made a special point of going into the branch get info (as opposed to calling) and the woman told me that my remaining account - a checking account - was fee free. Then, over the weekend they slapped on a $25 service charge. Nope. That's it. I'm out.

My main credit card is an Amazon visa with Chase. And all I want with a backup checking account is atm's and a place to get five dollar bills if I want them and no fees. Chase has a brick and mortar just up the road. And their rules for no fees are crystal clear. So I opened up a backup checking account with them. I'll probably regret it some time down the road but for now, I'm cool.

My favorite swimsuit was still damp this morning after yesterday's swim. Not much but enough to be annoying at 5:30 am. It was only $19 so I thought I'd just go back and get another one. Amazon, of course. Only this time, it was $12!! Score. Be here tomorrow.

I had a lengthy dream last night during which my left thigh from the knee to the hip hurt a lot and wouldn't stop. Then I woke up to pee and discovered that the thigh thing was no dream. It hurt. Lots. Then when I got up this morning, the hurt snaked down over my knee. I know it's my back and I had not been doing my back exercises and ugh.

I got up and got coffee and internetted and tried to interest myself in those exercises. And failed. But, it is another wonderfully cloudy morning so why not try swimming a few laps? I couldn't think of a reason not to. So I did.



Speed records were not broken but I did make sure my legs were working the entire time. I stopped twice for brief breathers but otherwise just kept going. I am sure it has been more than a year since I did any laps. It was really nice. The forecast shows some more cloudy mornings coming up. I might try it again.

But I really should do those back exercises.

Timber Ridge usually takes any excuse to shut down all the meal options and consolidate into one early afternoon buffet. Real holidays and faux holidays. Except for this year's Labor Day. For some strange reason, they are ignoring it. Very weird.

But baseball is on - one game at 1 and one game at 4.

I think I might go out and puzzle a bit this morning. But that's it for plans.

So I finally got the app to work correctly, with no help from Audible. But, I decided to cancel anyway. 20 years ago, actually even 5 years ago, Audible was great. Easy and with wonderful customer support. You could return any book you didn't like and buy another. Easy and simple. Even after Amazon bought them. But, gradually, that simple totally disappeared and started to take easy with it. In order to return a book you had to go to chat and beg. They always granted but it was annoying. Cut to this morning.

My annual membership renews at the end of September. I had used up all my credits. I pre-ordered 3 books but two of them won't be available until the end of October. I wanted to make sure I could listen to those books without a membership. So I went to Chat. Holy fuck. You've seen those chats that won't transfer you to a live person until you categorize your reason in about 20 different selections? Then finally you get a 'chat with representative'. This was like that except there were only 5 choices and no other options. I finally cracked the code and got a representative who told me I didn't have 3 books on prepay but only 2 and why did I want to cancel??? We finally after 45 fucking chat minutes got the 3rd book back into my account. And the reason I am canceling is that. 45 fucking chat minutes??????? And my experience on Reddit the other day when they asked for my operating system 3 different times. Audiobooks are not tangible. It's not like I can take my goods and leave. I am totally dependent on their customer service which is not even trying to rise up to the level of sucks.

Hilariously, because the agent fucked up and put a credit in my account, I need to spend it before I cancel. ha! But, at least I'm not longer on the fence about leaving.

EXCEPT. When you actually cancel, they throw some pretty serious discount offers in your face. Now I might have to think about it some more. And, just now, I got a comprehensive, well written, easy to understand email* from the chat agent who - in chat - consistently did not answer my questions or use understandable English. Wild. Just wild. But, yes, I guess I'll sign up for another year with their 40% off. Fuck. Oh well.

*The email was probably written by some AI app but that's fine by me. It spells out everything and provides me with a paper trail if I need it so I'm fine with that.

In other news...

It's raining! Well dripping really but there are raindrops on the sidewalk. Yesterday, it stayed beautifully cloudy all day and today looks like maybe more of the same. My kind of weather.

Today will be baseball and other TV and knitting. Maybe some puzzling but maybe not. And tomorrow, with the holiday, will be the same and I'm perfectly happy with all of it.

I finished (probably) the Halloween dolls and ghosts and made one of the regular mini monsters but didn't get a photo yet. I need a better photo background, the one I've been using is kind of beat up. Maybe today's project. Maybe not.

Charisma is such an interesting thing. I rarely run into it but, man, when I do... Jeff Jackson (the attorney general of North Carolina) has it. He posts videos online that force you to watch to the end. It's not so much what he's saying but the way he says it. His manner, his eyes.

I saw it again this morning. Maria has lived here for a long time. I know her to see her but we've never met. She's not very mobile. Her son, Chris, lives in Atlanta and comes about twice a year. He usually plays volleyball with us and is great fun to have in the game. This morning, mid-game, he showed up pool side to say hi. He is here this time because his mother is dying - 2 or 3 days. There were 8 of us in the pool at the time. He squatted down and explained the situation. I was on the other side of the pool so ended up in the back of the pack. So I watched and it was fascinating. He doesn't really know these people. And, yet, he spoke so kindly and clearly and patiently and answered all the questions and I'll bet you every single person thought he was talking directly to them. I sure did. Doesn't help that he's very pretty. I don't know what he does for a living but I'll bet he's spectacular at it. Really interesting. I am sure sorry he won't be playing volleyball with us ever again.

My Apple+ and Masterpiece subscriptions are up, so it's time for another month or so of Netflix. I have accumulated a lot of Nexflix titles I wanted to see so it was time. And, then, I discovered another round of British Bake off is starting soon! So okdokey! Last night I watched the first few episodes of a show that I didn't know anything about. I have no idea how it even got on my list. BUT it's fun. Leanne. I think there are 12 or more 30 minute episodes and it has a nice cast and some great lines. I literally laughed out loud more than a few times.

I need cucumbers and peanut butter so I might venture out today. The dining room is serving some fabulous lamb chops this week and some very good scalloped potatoes but their salads kind of suck. So I need something to go with.

Dick made meatloaf earlier in the week. He came down yesterday just as I was, out of desperation and poor planning, getting ready to have another peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. He wanted some stuff printed and copied and as he was leaving he said "If you want some cold meatloaf for a sandwich, come on down." Honestly, it was probably not the best meatloaf when it was hot but damn that was a fabulous sandwich. And I have enough for a repeat today. I told him now that he knows the price mi printer es su printer.

Time to get dressed for Elbow coffee.

I've only been in a few orthopedic shoe stores but every one of them was WEIRD. This one was a little less weird except. There was a big yellow piece of paper taped to the front door that said YOU MUST SIGN IN. It was curling at the sides like it had been there forever. One step into the store there is another yellow sign repeating the demand and explaining it was because they were short staffed. I am so so so tired of hearing how everyone is so short staffed. Hire more people, people!!

Anyway, the kid who waited on me was about a 5 out of 10. But, he was a solid 5 and with attitude counseling, he could be an 8 or 9. But since they don't know how to hire people... I digress.

He shouted at me as I was doing the required sign in 'You don't have to sign in!' OK WTF?

It was a rocky start.

He listened, he measured, he recommended and his recommends were pretty spot on. I tried on about 4 pair and 3 of them were almost acceptable. I was hopeful. And then he brought out a pair of David Tate's (Evita) and put them on and before I even stood up I knew... Winner Winner chicken dinner.

I tried on more. Then I tried on a different size of the winner but, nope, perfect. Seriously my feet were just giddy. I told him I'd wear them out. He tried to put the shoes I'd worn in into the box and I said nope, I'd carry them. 'All sales final without the box! Also if you wear them outside.' You ain't gettin' these back, dude. Quit trying.

But he did have the last word... As I got out of the car at home and walked to the garage door, I kept hearing this noise. I looked down and that rascal had let me walk out with the tag still on!! So glad I didn't go shopping or a walking tour.



But, I have such happy feet.

I got dressed and brushed my teeth and reached for my pills and discovered I had not taken them on Wednesday OR Thursday!! I was sneezing all day yesterday and thinking the allergy pills had quit on me again. I sometimes forget a day every couple of months but never two!

If I die today, you'll know why.

Off to buy shoes in case I don't die today.

This will not be an entry about my new phone BUT the first couple of paragraphs will be. The good news is... I love it. It's got a lot of updated tweaks and tricks that I didn't expect and are hard to describe in a meaningful way. But outside of the fact that it is not cracked like my old one, it's even way better so I'm delighted.

BUT... yep, there is a but. Audible. This has happened before to me more than once. I do not remember what fixed it other than maybe Audible did an upgrade. Unless you have the audible app open, the book stops every 2 or 3 minutes. It resumes again when you go back to the app but seriously. I think Audible hates Pixels. Reddit does back me up with this ongoing issue. Every year there is at least one, maybe two threads about the problem. This morning I started this year's by linking to last year's and saying my new Pixel 10 had the same problem and I'd tried all the tweaks in the linked thread. I got a fast response asking what OS and what version of Audible. Now... new Pixel 10 - what the fuck os and version do you think I might have?????

I am considering a divorce from Audible. My annual membership renews in September. I have no more credits to spend. Maybe this is a good time to call 20 years a good run. Libby gives me lots of books. I changed my membership to monthly for the time being. If they fix the problem, I'll likely re-up. If not, then, nope.

But, speaking of customer experience... Bonny went to Fred Meyer on Wednesday. She wanted to find some step in sneakers. And she found the perfect pair of Skechers but they did not have her size. She found a Fred Meyer person and asked if there were more in the back or a different store. She said English wasn't his first language but she finally understood that they did not have more and would not because it was an older style. She took a photo of it and mentioned to him she'd see if she could find it on Amazon. He asked for her phone, she unlocked it and when to the Amazon app. He found the shoes on Amazon in her size and asked 'buy?' and she said YES! And he did. And yesterday afternoon she discovered they had been delivered to her apartment and they were perfect. She was so delighted. And so in love with that Fred Meyer guy. And Amazon. I think she's only ordered from Amazon about twice in her life. It was pretty hilarious.

Today I think I'm going over to that shoe store the podiatrist recommended. I looked online. They don't have many non-ugly shoes but they do have a few pair. So I'll go give them a shot.

And maybe do laundry. Baseball isn't until 4. Both my teams play at the same time for the next few days.

Oh one more camera thing. It has the most amazing zoom I've ever seen.

I just took these two photos sitting right here at my table. See the table I circled in red?



I zoomed in on it.



Isn't that wild???

Just next to that table, last night, some folks were set up for a little outdoor dining. With my new zoom, I could tell what they were eating!!! That has to be a football field away from here. Amazing.

The phone came with a nice USB c to USB c cable but I don't know why. I'll just add it to my collection.

I just put the old phone next to the new one on the table and tapped a few buttons and done. sim card was even, magically turned into an esim. Even my wallet was set up with my credit card.

The only glitch. Really the only one was the watch. A Pixel watch. This took way too long and too many tries to get connected. Left hand right hand clearly the Pixel department has gotten too large.

Now my old old phone is packaged for return which I will do right now.

My new phone is very pretty.