Saturday, May 31, 2014

A Beat Up Old Wrap Thing

Saturday 9

"Meet the Flintstones" (The Flintstones Theme) 
(Recommended by Harriet)
Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.
 
1) The song promises that, "When you're with the Flintstones, you'll have a yabba-dabba-doo time." So clearly Wilma was one accomplished hostess. What about you? Do you enjoy having company?
 
A. I just today took a test that said I was 97 percent introvert and 3 percent extrovert. What can we extrapolate from that? I bet the answer is that I am not the best hostess. I have people over occasionally but it is infrequent. Some years it is only once a year, at Christmas. I am perfectly fine with that.

2) Since lyrics say, "Let's ride with the family down the street/courtesy of Fred's two feet," we're assuming the pedal-powered Flintstone car didn't require much gas. Are you loyal to a particular brand of gas? Or do you fill up with whatever is nearby, or least expensive?
 
A. I prefer Citgo gas but the store that sold it locally closed. Now I buy my gas at Kroger and I have no idea what they actually sell. I do know that I have to use more fuel-injector cleaner with it than I ever did with Citgo gas.

3) Clearly a sharp-dressed man in stone-age Bedrock wore a long tunic and no pants. What are you wearing right now, as you answer these questions?
 
A. A pair of jeans, a short-sleeved pull-over sweater, brand-new $130 sneakers, and a beat-up old wrap thing that I call "blue thing" that is more than 20 years old and full of holes. Also socks and underwear, but no bra. How's that for too much information? 
4) Pebbles Flintstone grew up with Dino the Dinosaur and Baby Puss the Saber-Tooth Cat. Did you have any pets as you were growing up?

A. I had dogs, cows, chickens, ducks, quail, peacocks, guineas, and probably other things I am forgetting. The dogs that I can recall were Prince and Princess (two Dalmatians, one of whom was run over by the ice cream truck at my grandmother's house); Heidi, a poodle; her son, Major; Schooner, a mixed-breed collie mutt; and Clipper and Trixie, who were sisters. After I left home, my husband and I had a dog named Ginger for 17 years. After she died in 2001, I choose not to have any more dogs.

Also when I was young, we had two baby calves that we bottle-fed; their names were Jack and Jill.
 
5) Mr. Slate is Fred's blustery boss at quarry, and he frequently threatens to fire Fred. Have you ever had a bad-tempered boss?

A. I once had a boss who would dictate into the dictation machine while he was eating. The letters would sound like, "Dear Mr. So & So, (slurp, chomp) As yoiuknuynuyj (who knew what he was saying), we are going to file suit tomorrow (slurp, chomp)."

I was expected to make something out of this. Finally, when I had had enough and was about one day away from quitting, I typed out the letter exactly as it sounded, which was much like the above. I got into trouble for it but as you may have gathered, by that time I didn't really care. He was not necessarily a bad-tempered boss, he was just a jerk all the way around. He got fired not long after I left the company. I was not surprised.
 
6) It's estimated that during The Flintstones original run (1960-1966), it was viewed by as many adults as kids. Now that you're a grown up, do you still watch cartoons?
 
A. I used to enjoy Captain Planet and Reboot in the 1990s, but I don't think either of them are on now. I don't think I have watched a cartoon in a good 10 years.

7) In 1961, The Flintstones was nominated for a Prime Time Emmy Award as Outstanding Comedy Series. Do you watch awards shows?

A. No. They are boring.

8) There are at least two Flintstones-themed amusement parks currently in operation. Do you enjoy scary rides?
 
A. If the ride didn't jerk me around and dislodge body parts, I might. But I am fragile and break easily and gave up on amusement rides a long time ago.

9) Flintstones Vitamins are still on store shelves. Do you take a vitamin each morning?

A. I take one every evening. I graduated from Flintstones vitamins to Centrum Silver, though.

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Bonus mini-rant that has nothing to do with The Flintstones or Saturday 9:

I really don't understand how people can blame the POTUS for the things the health insurance companies do. My insurance has been dictating my care since 1985, and never for the better, I assure you. Thanks to the insurance companies back then, I was not able to have a child. They wouldn't pay for my care for endometriosis until it nearly killed me (it was a pre-existing condition), and by then it was too late.

Now I am again having a health care crisis, and my insurance company doesn't want to pay for my physical therapy. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act and everything to do with stockholders trying to get money out of something that should not be done privately to begin with.

If you want to blame POTUS for anything, it should be the fact that he caved in and didn't create a single payer system (Medicare for all), which would have destroyed the insurance industry and put doctors back in control of health care.

8 comments:

  1. That's a lot of pets! Wow. We just had a collie and that overwhelmed me. I was never a pet person but since I had four kids we had a dog and two cats. I lost custody (thank God) during my first divorce...

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  2. I am nostalgic for my childhood dog. She was my best friend for 14 years.

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  3. I was thrilled to have my kids on my insurance until they turn 26. Some people just want to try to make him fail because they are - let's face it- idiots looking for big $$$ or deep down you know whats. While it's not perfect, it's something. Too many people were getting screwed by the businesses etc running health care. Funny how this only bothered certain people when the VA finally got busted. Anyway, good for you getting new and wonderful sneakers.

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  4. I would probably score similarly on a test to determine if i'm an introvert or extrovert.

    And the health insurance companies make me angry, too. >:(

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  5. Sounds like my kind of comfy outfit. I was thinking about sharing being bra-less too. That's kind of given when I'm at home. :-) I wish I'd have grown up with farm animals. How fun. That's hilarious that you typed out the letter how it sounded!!

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  6. I agree with every syllable of your rant.

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  7. I never host anything at my own place, but help friends co-host on a regular basis. Good bonus rant!

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  8. I agree with your rant completely and I also wish he didn't cave on the single-payer system. Why do we need a middle man, i.e., insurance companies? They do nothing but cause problems and have their hands out for their cut! Always problems and aggravation from them. I think they think if they cause more problems, you'll either give up or make a mistake and they won't have to pay what they agreed to. When I broke my back last year, the bone doctor wanted to do surgery. I wanted to avoid it. He said we could try a brace and wrote me a prescription. The first thing I did when I got home from his office was call the insurance company to see if it was covered and if the supplier he recommended was "in the network." They told me it was, but the supplier was not in the network and they gave me a list of other suppliers. Luckily I make it a habit of always getting everyone's name who I am speaking to and I keep notes because lo and behold, turns out braces are NOT covered and the insurance company refused to pay it. Big fight that lasted six months until they finally gave in. I knew they were waiting for me to tire but I wasn't giving up because THEY told me it was covered. Tip: not only get the name, but get the spelling. Anonymous workers in call centers are less likely to have simple names like Anita nowadays and more likely to have names like Makeea, who was the one who told me it covered. Or maybe it was Makia, or Maykea, or Maakeya. Who knows? THIS caused a little trouble. Because they don't give their last names and the insurance company thought they had me. "How do you spell it?" But I wouldn't give up. After months of torture, they paid it. Now Kurt has to get bypass surgery again. Every time he sees one of the specialists, we have to get a referral from the primary care doctor first who has no idea what is going on and who also has people running a call center who argue with me every single time I call for a referral and get it wrong most of the time. Last week they sent me another patient's referral. If I don't stay on top of every single thing they do, there will be a mistake and the insurance company won't pay. Which is what I think they are counting on. Very stressful. What do sick people do who don't have a wife who works from home and can make all these calls? (Don't get me started on how long they have me on hold every single time. I've taken to putting it on speaker phone and writing while I'm waiting.) None of this is because of the Affordable Care Act. This has been going on for years. This is what the ACA is trying to fix. Get big business out of health care!

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