Drinking bad white wine at the moment. Went through a bottle of the red Rickshaw plonk from Shirley’s last night. The white wine I got for risotto, but to save money I cut down on the mushroom aspect and used Carolina Rice instead of arborio. No shallots, so used red onion. Perfectly edible, but not terribly appetizing. In the Rubbermaid container in the fridge now.
Coming back from Morton Williams this afternoon, I heard the Westminster Chimes go off in my coat pocket. The ringtone. A nice young lady at the other end (Caucasian! articulate!) from the local Social Security office. She was detailed on my appeal of a couple weeks back, noting my missing earnings, 1998-2006. She located them and reassigned them. All but the 1998 ones from SSB/Citi. Actually that was only for the second half of the year, perhaps $30,000, with the other wages through temp agencies. So it’s not a great loss if she couldn’t find them. Anyway it’s totally delightful and unexpected, considering the losses and frauds and scams I’ve been through the past two months. Miss Wills is her name. She was assisted by one Miss Terri Knight.
Wills told me these new earnings for 1999-2006 should begin to appear on my record in a couple of days. This I just cannot believe. What I can believe (and which she didn’t say) is that perhaps in a month or two I’ll have another three or four hundred in my SS monthly benefit. Which would make quite a difference. Retrieving the back benefits with corrected earnings, for 2017 through 2024 (eight years) is as yet unclear. That would be $20,000, conservatively estimated. I may have to fight to get there. “Usually they go back only four years,” she said, regarding paying back benefits. I cannot understand how the newly adjusted earnings would not add considerably to the monthly draw, however. If there’s trouble getting anything owed, I shall probably have to apply for SSI (I think it’s called) to make up the difference.
The need for this is very much on my mind, as there are new duns from the landlord and utilities. A young negro dropped off a DEMAND LETTER from the landlord lawyers two nights ago, Monday. How I dreaded and expected that door buzzer. Fortunately only $9000 is being demanded now, $3000 of which I can take care of in the next few days. Not the $40,000+ I was expecting. And then there’s the termination notice from Con Ed, final date around the 20th, I think. This I can argue with Con Ed about, as I use little electricity. And if worse came to worst, I could pay $1000 or so from the Moki Apple Card. (Have to watch that.) And I could plead the welfare office (HRA) to intervene, or help me pay that electric bill.
That was how I spent one of my days last week. Refiling an HRA request for money for rent. And applying for food stamps (I’m told I just have to go down to the office for my EBT card), and also applying for Medicaid. With Medicaid I can get Medicare Part B. With Medicare Part B I can get additional healthcare coverage. Tuesday last week.
And talking to Verizon, which overcharged me $25 because of the extender I did not ask for or authorize. They sent me a box and label so I can send the extender back to someplace in Coatesville. Monday last week, I believe.
And, most grueling, yelling at Chase jeets and chingchows over the fraud on the Amazon Visa card. They’ve closed that card off, as of January 25. I did not make the $95 payment due on Jan 27. Maybe in a few days. I do not intend to pay them more than would be due without the Hoolio scam. Spoke to them on Monday, and then on Tuesday, while uploading photo’d documents for my HRA filing.
I still will file a police report about Hoolio. Next week. Say they’ve strung me along until the last few weeks, never returned goods or paid me.
(While at Mass this past Sunday, in the Lady Chapel, I saw there were text messages from Eric Montoya, one of the scam artists who tried to get a few hundred out of me so he could send me lots more. I was susceptible to lots of such scams in December.)
And angrily emailing the Bern firm about the MSK files. The Gianfranco guy had the files last October. Didn’t follow up because he read in the early pages of the files that I had been first diagnosed in the year 2000, well before 9/11. Thus neglected to note that I did not get officially diagnosed and treated at MSK until 2003, at which time the plaques had increased considerably. I was reminded to do this because a chiquita named Maria phoned me up from Bellevue. Not actually Bellevue nor yet the Bellevue annex on Lex, but from her home, working remotely. She was asking after my medical files. The top of my head was about to come off. Gianfranco got the files to me, via email, a day or two later, along with his bullshit explanation about how I’d first been diagnosed in 2000.
A measure of good luck occurred to me as I walked home from Morton Williams, with the rice, etc., and peeled off to go to the Chinawoman’s for the cheap (and not particularly tart) sauvignon blanc for the risotto. Here I’d been thinking since awakening, slightly depressed, that it was afternoon of Thursday. Thursday the 5th of February. But the 5th is only Wednesday. I still have Thurs and Fri ahead of me. Maybe I can even cut my hair and make it to the gym. I have the Coogan’s 5k run in a month, but Lord knows I’m not going to do that. I do have a Frozen Bonsai 5k to manage in Prospect Park (I think it is) next weekend for nruns, and then the gawdawful Central Park Half the following weekend. No money via Gusto for me for a long time.
A couple days ago I dropped off some virtually overdue books at the 53rd St Library. Yesterday, to the MM Library to take out the Brad Gooch bio of Flannery O’Connor. Was going to take out another bio of her, but instead took out a nearby bio for the Marquess of Queensberry. I’ve dipped into that at length, not the Flannery. Have to do something on O’C for C-C. Walked down through Rock Plz. It’s coming up on Saturday Night Live’s 50th year, and they have a big black block with a video screen out in the middle of the street, slightly north of 30 Rock.
4 February 2025
