My youngest grand daughter, Morgan, spent the night last night. She only lives 4 blocks away. She currently has a job cat sitting for a neighbor of ours. She came over yesterday because she was having trouble unlocking the door. (They left a few days ago and won't be back until Jan. 6) She got Gary to help her, then came back here instead of going home. Well, another NCIS marathon TV show was going on, so she decided to just stay here.
It has been rather nippy here, so I decided to make chicken and noodles for dinner. I cooked the chicken while she and Gary went bowling. I checked the seasonings, and it was really good. When they got home from bowling, I baked Morgan some french fries (you know, the frozen ones) and chicken nuggets. I added the noodles to the pot, and in about 20 minutes, we sat down to eat. Come to find out, the noodles (Mrs. Reemers frozen noodles) we rancid. I just got them at Tom Thumb a couple of weeks ago, and they went from their freezer, to the car for a short ride, then home to my freezer. I checked the date, and they were out of date by 4 months. Wow, I've never had that happen before. I was really upset. Gary decided he'd just go get us a Whataburger. Well, Morgan loves their chicken strips, so she insisted he get her some from Whataburger, along with fries. If you know Gary, he caved in. Caved in, that's a stupid term. There never was a doubt that he'd get what she wanted. So, last night the racoons and opossums had home made chicken strips and fries.
Morgan got tired of NCIS and moved to Castle. I guess it was around 11pm when she and I and Stella went to bed. Gary was assigned the couch in the study. At some point in time, Morgan got hot and decided to just take care of the issue herself. She got up and turned the heater off and turned the AC on. Not only that, she sat the thermostat at the lowest temperature available. Well, I got cold, but with a dog snuggled on one side and Morgan snuggled on the other, it was tolerable. Gary, however, got extremely cold and got up to see what was going on. At 5am this morning, it was 58 degrees in the house. It was about 32 outside, so I do consider us lucky. He was just a little annoyed. Of course, it was all my fault cause I should have known it was cold and taken care of it. Yeah.... like I'm going to get out of bed when it's that cold. It took until about 7am to get it warm in here again.
Gary went ahead and made coffee, and we did our morning ritual.... 12 cups of coffee between the two of us and one newspaper. I was good to go. At 9am, I got on the phone with my secondary insurance company and got paper work filled out to bill them for what was "supposed" to be paid automatically by medicare's cross over plan. They fixed the computer problem that wasn't auto billing my secondary insurance on my doctor bills, but it is not retroactive. Took care of my problem with that AND Gary's problem with the same thing. His has been broken for two years, but never knew it because he hadn't been to the doctor till last month. Both fixed.... for now.
Then, I attempted to call the Social Security Office. We sold some property in 2011 and made quite a bit of money that year. It caused our MAGI (some term they use to say our adjusted gross income) to put us in the upper income category. Well, they do a 2 year look back to see what you should pay for Medicare insurance. Last year, I joined Medicare in Oct. I noticed that my premium was double Gary's, so I called and asked why. It was because they were using the 2011 income tax just like they're supposed to. Gary and I file one income tax for both of us (joint filing). I asked why his wasn't like mine, and they said they couldn't discuss his with me. Mine would go down when they did my 2014 review, and they'd then use our 2012 income tax. OK, fine.
Well, this year, BOTH of us showed to be paying double the premium amount. I called, and it's because they're using our 2011 income tax because we didn't file a 2012 income tax.... this is per Medicare. OK, enough. I spent one whole day (half of it on hold) on the phone with Social Security. We discovered that Gary's income tax filing in September of last year (he gets an extension every year because it takes longer than necessary to get all the required forms from the various companies we own stock in) was not in the system when Social Security looked for it. Now, we got the letter in December, so I haven't figured that out. I asked them if they'd look again. Nope. I had to fill out a request form. They mailed me a form. I couldn't figure out why I was trying to get SSI (I think it's disability or else it's welfare.... I never figured it out) and Veteran's benefits on the form they sent. I called and waited an hour and a half for someone to call me back, only to find I needed to go on line and get a different form.
Well, I got that form, and it says unless it's a death, etc., then I am not allowed to file it. Off I go to the Social Security office in McKinney. An hour later, a lady gives me a form and tells me to fill it out, and she also gives me one for Gary. It's the same friggin form. Ok, then I can get back in line and speak to someone else. Two hours later, this guy tells me how to fill out the form that I need to fill out and mail in. While he was looking stuff up, I asked what was on his wrist.... was it a FitBit? Yup, a jawbone version of it. He talks about 20 minutes on how it works, and then says.... you know what, I think I'll just fill this form out for you online and take care of it. That's okay I say, cause I'll still have to have my hubby fill out one. Nope, he'll do his as well. What? Someone who actually wants to help me? Needless to say, we chatted for 30 more minutes about his health routine, while he filled out the forms. Then, he took a copy of my income tax. It was the same form, I asked how it would go, and he said he just makes notes and they'll get their own copy of the income tax from the IRS once they see my copy. Well.... 3 hours later, I was on my way home again.
While I was in the waiting room, I saw their video (multiple times) that says that over 6 million people have retired and signed up for Social Security using the internet web site. They have a news report every now and then between their pushing their online services. I then saw a report that thanks to a surge in enrollment and web site enhancements that in December, over 1 million people are now enrolled in Obama Health Care. Wow, I think they'd be too embarassed to put that on the news. Oh well.
My nephew is supposed to come in later tonight for a visit. Everyone except Angie is off to El Fenix for dinner. They are having a sale on margaritas. Only $2.95. Not bad.... so e're off. Enjoy your evening.
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