My home is without cat for the first time in more than 20 years.  All three of our cats got tainted cat food 5 years ago.  The food was supposed to be kidney-support food that we purchased from the veterinarian (who we stopped using because of this and other incidents) and we were feeding it to all three cats because one of them had kidney troubles and it was impossible to isolate their feeding.  Instead it made our cat with bad kidneys worse and our other two cats sick.  We must have identified the problem early enough because they all endured long lives, although drinking and peeing in great quantities.  Miss my kitties.

Sunday, November 4th I packed up and put away all the Halloween decorations.  It was an exhausting job. 

Today I'm reflecting that I went on yet another interview and didn't get the job.  I've been on so many interviews it is discouraging.  So my resume is good, my phone screening is good, but why aren't they seeing how good I could be for them at the interviews?

My Mom phoned a couple of days ago.  She had pain, went to her doctor, who told her she had gallstones and should go to a surgeon.  When she told him she thought she'd wait a little he said "Do you want to die?"  I hate when medical doctors do this.  You know, surgery can cause death.  Patients don't get to have surgery unless they sign hospital releases stating that if they die on the operating table it isn't the doctors' fault and they (or their 'estate') won't sue.  Of course much of the time it IS the doctors' fault.

That isn't to say that gallbladder surgery isn't life-saving and necessary sometimes.  It can be.  But either medical doctors don't know the whole truth (in which case they are stupid and ignorant and shouldn't be doctors) or they don't tell the whole truth (in which case they are alarmist swindlers and should be jailed).  So I wrote a web page that does tell the whole truth about gallstones and posted it.

It is time to continue my updates on Alwanza.com.  My plans are to redo all the style sheets to make the remaining pages that are currently space-controlled by tables controlled instead by div tags; and to separate the style sheets into those that control spacing and those that control color.  And I plan to put all the links on my link pages into a database and find more efficient ways to delete or modify dead links and add new ones.

Other than Alwanza.com, I'm making bids on contract work and still looking for full time employment.

I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, which is okay if I only do it to myself; but I need to focus on being more forgiving of others.  Last year my New Year's resolution read something like:  be more forgiving, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  So what happens?  My life has given me plenty of annoying little opportunities and I've been less than perfect, but I'm working on forgiving myself.  For example, two of my dentists require full payment at the time of service.  They will bill my insurance and then either my insurance will reimburse me, or if the insurance pays the dentist, the dentist will reimburse me.  Theoretically it makes sense, pay for the service when it is rendered, and then get reimbursed. 

The problem is that one dentist billed with incomplete information and when the insurance company requested that he identify the tooth he worked on, by resubmitting a more complete claim, that request was ignored.  Apparently this is not a rare occurence.  Worse than that are cases in which the doctor actually makes a mistake in the billing and you don't get reimbursed.  Doctors hate to correct themselves because they hate to admit they've made any mistake ever, even clerical ones.  But you know, if the doctor wouldn't get paid himself without making that correction, he would do it.  But now he already has your money.  What's his motivation?  If you are a repeat patient, he might correct the error and resubmit the insurance form, but if not....

The other dentist received my insurance payment after I paid in full.  So he got paid twice and I waited for the reimbursement for a month.  The hold up?  I phoned twice.  The first time I was told "we're pretty sure the check is in the mail, but if you don't receive it, phone us back on Friday." The second time I was told that the bookkeeper is on vacation till Monday.  I don't know why they didn't say that when I phoned the first time instead of assuring me the check was in the mail and that I should phone on Friday if I didn't receive it.  I sound whiny, but knowing that I've been told to work to get my reimbursement when I honored their policies annoys me.  One of these days I've promised myself I will write a tome on the evils of medical insurance.

What I WANT to do is to take my own release form into these dentists and doctors who demand prepayment and make them sign it.  That form will state that if the claim is denied due to a clerical error, the doctor will refund my payment immediately after the insurance denial or request for more information is received, and resubmit the claim without billing me or accumulating late charges until the corrected claim is processed and the insurance has paid the correct amount.  The form would also state that every day the doctor holds onto a payment that should have been reimbursed to me, I will accrue interest on the amount that is due me equivalent to the amount he would charge if I owed him that amount:  I'm not greedy, but fair is fair.

Two weeks ago a sink hole developed in our backyard and I haven't figured out the cause of it yet.  I don't see evidence of animal digging, so either it is a long burrow or a hole caused by weird drainage or I don't know what.  I stepped into a place that had been solid in the past and the earth slowly sank beneath me.  I did my best to find all the parts of it.  The hole seems to be about three feet in diameter.  I filled it in with mulch and I'm monitoring it. 

Tom and I took a long drive from Kingston to Point No Point and then south to Purdy.  We took a nice walk in the wetlands at Point No Point.  We saw some winter water fowl, so they are arriving in Puget Sound.  I'm looking forward to winter on the Sound.