Biking In The Morning Fog
Category: everyday life
Mom’s Updates
At the beginning of September, I made another attempt to file for my mom’s SSI. Last time, we were told we could try again in July 2026, but July and August were two super-stressful months, plus my mom’s internet saga, plus fixing here access to the Social Security portal.
Finally, we scheduled the phone appointment, and miraculously, the same inspector who was handling our case two years ago was assigned to us again. I almost cried when I heard her name! Because she was already completely aware of our situation, everything went fast and smoothly, and a week later, my mom was granted SSI. Less than I hoped, but still something. Her housing situation didn’t improve; I tried writing to our Alderwoman, but they told me they can’t help. I am going to file for cash assistance from the State (we couldn’t do this until we had a decision on her SSI).
My mom didn’t understand what had happened and kept asking whether it meant that they would take her “food card” away, so I assured her that it was in addition, not instead, but I do not think she believed me. Her first payment should come on September 30, and I hope that all will be well!
Morning Biking
You never know how long you will be able to keep biking in the morning, but so far – let each of these mornings be blessed!
COBRA, And What To Do About It
Before my separation from my previous firm, I had only one experience with COBRA, and I didn’t like it, however, similar to last time, this time I didn’t have other options: I was terminated without any notice and didn’t have any upcoming employment. That being said, the fact that my previous firm was going to pay my COBRA for the first four months was a relief.
Everything looked easy because I just needed to go to the COBRA provider website and enroll. I enrolled, but the website didn’t know anything about my former employer paying for my COBRA, and nothing changed several days later. I emailed my former HR, but nobody replied. A couple of days later, I received a note in the mail saying that because nobody paid the COBRA premium, my coverage couldn’t be reinstated.
I emailed my former HR again, and they said that they just paid, and everything should be fine. I logged in to my COBRA provider website, and it indeed indicated that the payments were made. However, the Blue Cross website was still insisting that my insurance was terminated.
On top of that, I actually needed to go to the doctor because my back/left leg started to hurt, and by September 17, it hurt really badly, so I couldn’t stand or walk without the pain. A strong painkiller I had for situations like that didn’t help, and in general, I felt the pain was more severe than previous relapses.
No appointments were available with my primary, and they suggested I go to another office to see another doctor in the same network. Then the scheduling center couldn’t find my insurance, as expected, and my assurances that COBRA would apply retroactively didn’t work. I told them that I would self-pay, got an appointment, paid $145, got another painkiller prescription, an X-ray referral, and a referral to an ortho specialist. A half-hour later, the scheduling service told me they couldn’t send a referral because my coverage wasn’t reinstated, and they told me to call when it was.
I returned home, took a deep breath, and called PT Solutions, which is a Haven on Earth and where Cori does his magic. I asked whether there could be any time that afternoon Cori could see me, and they found a slot. I came in and explained all about COBRA and being in between, and they were genuinely sorry and asked whether it was OK to charge me $35 (do not ask! I do not understand how they can charge a co-pay without insurance, but I am telling you, it’s a Heaven on Earth right here, in Rogers Park!). And Cori examined me and told me that there is no new injury; it’s all in my back, which reacted to the stress in such a way. He made some manipulations and showed me some exercises, and told me to come back on Monday if it didn’t help.
I have been doing all these exercises at least twice a day every day, and although I am not completely out of it, things have definitely improved.
I spent the next two days calling the COBRA provider (who said everything was OK and that they would notify Blue Cross, and insurance would be retroactively applied) and calling Blue Cross, who said they received nothing. On Wednesday, a Blue Cross representative called me and asked me to call COBRA again because he had already called them multiple times and verified the email address where they should have sent a notification, and it’s still not coming.
Finally, on Thursday morning, I logged into my Blue Cross account and didn’t see the red note on it. I couldn’t believe it was over, so I called them to verify, and they confirmed. However, I still had to ask them to reprocess a dental claim from September 2 (they won’t do it automatically), and I also have to file a claim for my out-of-pocket manually…
Summary:
- Why there are so many parasites around healthcare?!
- The rest of the world is normal in comparison to us
- There are some angels around us, especially in Rogers Park
And almost forgot: after I made sure that my insurance was reinstated, I immediately signed up for COVID and Flu shots, and got both of them today, so now I am ready to travel!
TIME Magazine: The Right To Disconnect
Original article here. Couldn’t agree more.
Continue reading “TIME Magazine: The Right To Disconnect”Cultural Events
Last week marked the opening of the new theater season. So far, I attended the following events;
- The Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas concert at the Guarneri Hall. It was good (the pianist, Adam Neiman, was excellent), but the lecture before the concert was unnecessarily long and not very informative. I have a feeling that everyone was just waiting for the speaker to be done and to listen to the music. Also, because of that lecture, the concert ended later than scheduled
- Dirty Dancing at Nederlander Theater. I never saw the movie, so I couldn’t appreciate all of the details my neighbor was admiring, but I liked the music, the acting, and how the dances were staged. Not out of this world, but really nice.
- Liliom – John Neumeier’s ballet at Joffrey. The libretto is based on the play Liliom, which was also the basis of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. Great, as always 🙂 (well, so far, the only ballet I didn’t like much was Eugene Onegin)
Pictures below were taken by me:
To be continued next week 🙂
Life On Pause
I started this post three days ago, when I truly believed the title reflected the reality. It does not look like it as of now, but I am going to keep it anyway and continue from where I started.
I am not working at DRW anymore. I took some time before I made the world know, but since I already announced it on LinkedIn, I thought I would let people know here. (I meant to publish this post before I shared it on LinkedIn, but then life happened :))
Several years ago, I thought I would retire at 67. After working at DRW for a couple of years, I adjusted my plans and decided to retire at 65. My wealth manager approved it, as long as I still worked part-time.
For the past several months, however, it was so emotionally challenging that I dreaded coming to work (which is absolutely not my normal state of mind), and I thought that the only thing I wished for was to retire immediately.
Since, as I said, it ended up being anything but a pause, I do not want to say more at the moment. I promise to share more details in a couple of weeks. Now I am posting just so that people who know me in real life don’t think I am withholding important information from them. As of now, I barely have time to do anything, including things I was hoping to have time for. I will tell more; I promise!
Horseflies And How To Fight Them
When Lake Michigan water suddenly became cold for several days, another unpleasant effect was an increased number of horseflies! These creatures are usually very successful in making me leave the beach because their bites are really painful, and once they are around you, nothing can stop them.
On the third day of this cold water period, the horseflies started to attack me immediately when I got out of the water, not even letting me dry myself with the towel (in fact, there were multiple horseflies on the towel and on the beach mat), so I had to run away, trying to dry myself while I was running!
I thought I should look for anti-horsefly spray, but when I typed it into the Amazon search bar, I saw that most anti-mosquito sprays work on horseflies too. I checked my supplies – it had been a while since I needed mosquito spray, but I found one and decided to take it to the beach next time.
For a couple of days, nobody bothered me on the beach, but I kept putting the spray into my beach bag. Two days later, the horseflies were back, so as a precaution, I sprayed myself with anti-mosquito spray after applying sunscreen.
Then I sat down on my beach mat and saw something black on it. My first thought was that those were some unknown sand beetles, but the next moment I realized that those were dead bodies of the horseflies! They didn’t even fly away – they just dropped dead!
I guess problem solved, although in a more dramatic way than I planned!
Biking North
Anna wanted to try to bike from my home in Rogers Park to her house in Milwaukee, which would be the longest distance she had ever covered in one day, and she asked me whether Boris and I would like to follow her for a portion of this route and then take a train back. We enthusiastically agreed. Originally, we were thinking about going with her all the way to Kenosha, but it turned out that there were no trains from Kenosha in the middle of the day, so we would have to wait for hours to go back. So, instead of making 45 miles to Kenosha, we only did 30 miles to Waukeegan.
We would never be able to do it without Anna, because the maps are not accurate, some directions are confusing, and it’s not always obvious where the path ends. Also, there is no safe biking path from Rogers Park to Evanston, which is a shame. Biking on Sheridan is not a safe option except for a very early morning on the weekend, and things are still confusing. There are great bike lanes in Evanston itself, including multiple protected lanes, but you still need to get there!
I took notes on Metra stations where I will be able to get to the bike path straight from the train, and I might try to go on a shorter ride later, although I will still need to consult Google extensively.
Oh, and this French cafè in Highland Park where we had breakfast was something!!! I almost want to go there just for breakfast!
One last note: it always feels that you are going North, and it always surprises me. The climate is more “livable,” although I still won’t trade it for the lake 🙂
Milky Way
I saw it on Monday!!! I’ve seen it only a handful of times in my life, and Monday was one of them! I got out on the balcony around 5 AM to water the flowers (otherwise I forget to do it before the day’s heat), and I noticed the stars were very bright, the sky was clear, and I could see way more constellations than usual. And then I thought: how come I see this strange white cloud? Then I realized the “cloud” formed a circle, and it wasn’t a cloud!
The pictures make the sky look dark blue and make the Milky Way look like a cloud, which was not the case. It was almost black, and the Milky Way looked magical.
