Count von Countdown: (4) More Years to Medicare, (3) More Days of Vork this Veek for Eleanor!

[captainsblog]

Uh Uh Uh!

I'm doing two countdown posts today because I came home early. We called in the stupid car thing from Christmas Eve and we are waiting for the call from the insurance about it, so since we're both off of work, we'll wrap that subject up.  I may split the final two year-end subjects over the final two days of this mizzable year, or perhaps one will be a day off.

Seems right to be talking about.

Work for both of us was as affected as anything in our lives by COVID. Both fell into BEFORE and AFTER with bright-line clarity. Neither of us ever lost a "day's pay" to it as such, although Eleanor did have a couple of abundance-of-caution periods where, due to a slight fever or cough and an inability to be tested (the first time) or to get timely negative results (the second), she was kept home but paid in full for the time she would have been there.  Her hours never changed on account of the pandemic, but her workstation did when they closed their cafe (and she didn't return there after it reopened), and the rules and surroundings changed a lot, with distancing and masking and plexi shields becoming the order of the day.  It's also brought out the idiots who can't deal with being told where to stand, what to wear or how to keep themselves and their fellow humans safe. I get a little of that occasionally, but probably not close to what she sees in any typical week.


On my end, my workload went down in terms of hours, but not as many as I would have expected. The trusty database says as of last Wednesday, I'd only recorded about 150 fewer in 2020 than I had through the same day in 2019.  One reason for the smaller than expected difference? I don't record travel time as potentially billable, and there was a LOT less of that in 2020, both long-haul and local. So while I was feeling hey, you worked a lot less, it was more that I drove a lot less, and spent more productive and recordable time when I wasn't wasting that time. 

My gross will be down, mainly because new collection work dried up and enforcing older claims became impossible; bankruptcies have been steady but the predicted major uptick has been held off by moratoriums and stimmy checks and such.  On the other hand, I saved having to pay out over $13,000 on Emily's parent loans; the balances remain, with no interest added to them since I last paid in March, but talk is loud about Biden knocking at least a good chunk off that principal once his Administration replaces the clown show currently in town. 

The plan remains for me to keep at this until 70. If anything, the changes in technology which have kept me off the road and out of courtrooms may become permanent or at least optional to a greater extent, and eliminating the schleps and the wasting-time waits on hard courtroom benches make a longer haul as attractive. 

The other factor there is health insurance. Despite all the complaints about the ACA and the weirdness of my own company's mockworthy ad campaign-



-my premiums have gone down each of the past two years, and while they're still way above the $45 a month I paid for full HMO coverage right out of law school, I will again end a calendar year without hitting my full deductible and am a year closer to the Promised Land of Medicare. 

Eleanor is, almost, already there: her coverage through Wegmans is guaranteed until she hits 65 in July, and as we chronicled early last month, she's begun exploring which Medigap plans and Parts of Parts will work best for her once she begins that coverage.  She's down to about 20 hours a week now and has medical dispensation to not be scheduled for more than 4-5 hours at a time, because the wear on the knees, shoulder and -new this fall!- biceps (from curling and squatting 30 pound turkeys despite customers being told to leave them in their !$%^& carts).  She began receiving Social Security last month, which has made up the loss of hours and a bit more; that will go up slightly in January, then down in July once the Part B premiums start coming out. She will likely continue working just to keep mind and body in some semblance of normalcy, although the longer this pandemic goes and COVIDiots are drawn to her, the less appealing that is. She works those shorter hours tomorrow and Thursday; a slightly longer New Years Day will follow, but she gets extra pay that day and it's usually a quiet one. Especially this year, with nobody going out for ball drops or big events and the Bills not playing until two days later.  Last night, they defeated their age-old New England nemesis on the road, pissing off their coach so much he did this:
 

Watch on YouTube

I don't know, Hoodie. They have been trying to reach you about your vehicle's extended warranty;)

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That's enough for today. I'm tired; but not re-tired.