Healthy Privacy Invader

This is a letter form a health coach from one of those companies that tries to lessen medical coasts by making their employees healthier. It was a load of bull if you ask me.

13th January 2015

Hi Richard,

I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed talking with you today. Thanks for taking time out to speak to me so we could identify goals that you are wanting to work towards.

I want to remind you that successful participation with (healthy privacy invader) includes tracking your goals at least 75 percent of the time, meeting your goals at least 50 percent of the time and being in contact with me on a regular basis. Meeting these requirements ensures that you will receive the incentive offered by your employer.

If you have any questions or concerns as you get started with (healthy privacy invader) these next few days and weeks, please don"t hesitate to give me a call or to send an email through the Core Messaging Center. I can be reached at (Phone). My toll-free number is (Phone).

You will find the Core Messaging either from the Message Center link to the left, or the Yellow box on your Quick View main page. You can send me a message through this internal email system by simply replying to any message I have previously sent you.

My office hours are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 6 am to 12 pm your time. If you are ever unable to reach me you are welcome to speak with a support coach who can help you complete your regular contact requirement or address any questions you might have. Simply press “0” during my voicemail message and our Customer Service department will be happy to assist you.

I am confident that we will work well together! I look forward to hearing from you again the week of February 9th.

Thanks again. I hope that you have a great week!

I Love Lucy Feet

 

Night of Bad Dreams

1st March 2015 

Dear Cassi,

Last night was a night of bad dreams, but in waking I found the sink a mess and the laundry in need of doing. Were the dreams so bad as my reality? I had to hold off on proper food and eat only something to keep my body going. Until nearly midnight I could make myself no proper meal because of the mess I had to address.

I had taken nothing into my gut for nineteen hours and so was feeling drained and weak. I guess you know this life, but I can only guess. I do not recall when I first started doing dishes, but I know it had hard to reach the counter top when I did. You must remember that back then my mother was too weak to wash and the rest of my family to lazy.

I stacked out the dishes and started addressing the jumble in the linen closet having to wash everything over again. I can’t imagine how Pickle finds it so hard to fold towels. Then the cabinets get rumbled after he washes dishes and the mess grows until I pull it all out and start over.

For more than twelve hours the washer or dryer ran with most of it being both at the same time. The dishwasher ran twice and the long run of cleaning only made a dent in the detritus.

In the end I finally when back to sleep and had more bad dreams, but not as bad as my waking nightmare. Now in the twilight of the day I sit before the computer logging this misfortune.

Live as you can, little sister,




Richard Leland Neal

Angels Have No Gender

 

This Grizzly Reality

14^th March 2015

Dear Cassi,

       

I have so much to say about my wounded little cat. Well, writing about my pain dulls it some and gives me the strength to face this grizzly reality. When I gave Ire her medication that first time Pickle started crying. He’s thirty nine and crying over a wounded cat that isn’t his. Well, the liquid painkillers helped.

       

In any case, when I took my little silver gray cat to the eye specialist they quoted me for two separate operations. To simply remove the eye was almost three thousand dollars and to repair it, which would likely not save Ire’s sight, was nearly four thousand. Treating the condition medically would only cost six hundred.  I read later that she had quoted someone else twelve and eighteen hundred for these operations.

       

Now, as I mentioned, the specialist’s tools looked very old, and I told her so during the examination. She ignored me. It left a silence in the air that made me question if those tools were still modern. Further, there were old dusty books in the examination room and other objects that would have been hard to keep clean. A bit of dust in a damaged eye can make all the difference.

       

One thing that I did care for was that the vet wrapped my cat in a towel before conducting the examination. This kept her legs firmly secured so that she couldn’t scratch. It was a green towel, which I didn’t care for. White towels are kept for medical use so that they can be kept clean. It’s hard to miss dirt on a white towel.

       

The final point was that the vet didn’t bother to discuss the medications with me before I left. She said they were just strait forward. I didn’t know that there was a medication that needed refrigeration until I had slept and woke up again. I need to find a better eye doctor.

Know the world, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Parallel Lines

 

The Pony and the Bar Keep

 

'Throw a Kiss, Harry' by Mary Chalmers: Book Review

'Throw a Kiss, Harry' is a primary book written by Mary Chalmers and one of the shortest books I've ever read in terms of word count. Well, at very least for 'The 5,000 Project'.

This is the story of Harry, an anthropomorphiced kitten, who wanders away from his mother. I have to grant there is so little to this story that I have trouble figuring what I think about it, but the book appears to have been much loved by the original owner who gave it to her grandson back in 1981. 

The truth is that this book is short and should inspire children to read so I give it a thumbs up.

Who should read this book? Children and cat lovers.

Books Read 22 of 5,000

Pages:32

Total Pages Read for 'The 5,000 Project': 5,565

Silence is the Best Answer - Buddhist Saying

The Eye Doctor

13^th March 2015

Dear Cassi,

Yesterday I went to the veterinarian, and today I went back to the veterinarian. I told you that my troubles were not yet over and they had only started. Ire, my little silver gray kitten, was bleeding from her eye, and I knew the morpheme would only last so long.

       

I was the eye doctor’s first client of the day, and still they had me wait before being seen. At this point it was past eleven. It could have been that they had simply started a new sign in sheet, but there were no other clients waiting.

       

They sent me into an exam room and had me sit waiting again. I set Ire in my lap and stroked her back as she purred. I looked around that room noting that all the equipment looked old and the Hooker Green paint on one of the test tools made me think 60s or 70s. It was a hundred and thirty dollars just for the doctor to look at my cat with her eyes. She didn’t take a temperature, but she did shine a light at my cat in the dark.

       

She billed me for a pressure test and she billed me for a dye test. When she took the pressure test she used the same cap for both eyes then threw the little white bit of latex away afterwards. I think she should have changed caps. If Ire had an infection in one eye it just got transferred to the other.

       

It was more than five hundred dollars to walk out of that office, and if I’m late for the next appointment I’ll pay ninety but there’s more. The pain medication they gave my cat was in pill form. There was no way I could wrestle with her to take a pill with her eye swollen and bloody. What if I had hit the eye and damaged it somehow? I had to call my regular vet to see if I could get a liquid pain killer and they obliged.

       

I read up on that eye specialist and she has gotten bad review after bad review. This is kind of to be expected with a veterinarian. I mean, no one likes to pay big bills. The only thing is that when I read one of the reviews she had quoted someone else much less for the same operation.

Do your homework, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Wee Willie Winkie - William Miller

The Nightmare that was this Day

Ire before her injury in 2014

12^th March 2015

Dear Cassi,

       

How can I describe the nightmare that was this day? It started with so normal a thing. I went to the car dealer to finally have my window wiper replaced and as I was coming home got a call from Pickle telling me that Ire was bleeding. The gray kitten had mucus coming out of her eye the day before, not much mind but enough for me to keep watch, and I hoped Pickle was mistaken.

       

He wasn’t, blood was dripping from my little cat’s right eye in two strands leaving little red disks on the floor. My little silver gray girl was weak and miserable from pain. I got her into the cat crate, and called the vet, who said they would take me right away, and so, that minute, I was in the car and making a drive that felt so much longer then it had the last time I went down that way. The attendant took one look at Ire and got her into the back to see the veterinarian who at once gave her morphine for the pain.

       

They told me that the prognosis was not good, and that Ire would probably need the eye removed. They said I needed to take her to a specialist and so sent me to the closest one to the clinic.

       

Finding this place was a nightmare in and of itself, because they never gave me the suite letter to find the eye clinic in that little block of shops. The map said 1301 S Beach. I got it into my head that the eye vet was in suite S, but there was no such suite. I paced that little strip mall twice before someone saw me and gave me directions. Even then the eye specialist was hard to find.

       

I felt better walking through the door and finally seeing a veterinarian. I’ll tell you the story of what happened there another day, but my troubles were far from over.

Keep your head about you, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Gratitude - Joseph Alsop