The Daughter’s an emotional wreck — a combination of hormonal issues (recently started on thyroid meds for hypothyroidism and birth control pills for severe PMS issues) and the stresses of being a HS senior trying to get all of her college application ducks in a row for early application deadlines. Plus she was out training for her next triathlon and severely twisted her ankle; it’s a big, swollen, bruised mess.

The Son is doing well in school but the honeymoon period seems to be ending and he’s expressed rising stress levels. He’s acutely aware of his difficulty in reading social cues and is worried about it. And he can’t figure out whether his classmates are being nice just because they’re nice people or because they really like him. [I wouldn't go through my teen years again to save my life; I can't imagine how much more difficult this stage must be for someone with Asperger's.]

The good news is that I’ve made it to the third round of interviews for this job I want. I’m not sure how many more there are to go; I’m just grateful to still be in the game.

The bad news is that our insurance agent called on Friday and reported that the second insurance company, Aetna, denied all three of us coverage [if you recall, Blue Cross denied The Son about 6 weeks ago]. I’d been advised that we could try to fight Blue Cross’ denial based on the fact that Gilbert’s is considered a benign genetic syndrome but our agent doesn’t think it’s worth the effort especially since we probably wouldn’t win in the long run. He advises that we all three go with the state plan. He’s probably right. Anyway, looks like health insurance for me and the kids will run us about $900/mo. Add to that the fact that we each have a $2,000 deductible [total $4,000 out-of-pocket cap] and our prescriptions are under a co-insurance not a co-pay arrangement, we’re looking at probably over $1,000/mo.

No, increasing our expenses by $900/mo doesn’t faze me a bit! :-p

Easy peasy, right?

Related Posts for Further Reading

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• $$: Chiropractor

Last night it was a PB&J (Marantha organic peanut butter & Cascadian Farm organic Raspberry jelly on Rudi’s organic 100% whole wheat bread) for The Daughter.  Plus a sliced Honeycrisp apple.  For The Son: 3 slices of Applegate Farm’s smoked turkey breast, Hain mayonnaise, Kroger spicy mustard, and lots of green leaf lettuce on Rudi’s organic 100% whole wheat bread.  Plus a sliced Gala apple.  [apple skins are always left on, BTW]

It’s not like I think I should make their lunches days ahead of time (after all, a fresh sandwich is fresh for only so long) but I could certainly do it a little earlier than midnight especially now that I’m getting up every morning at 6am.  Five hours of sleep each night just isn’t cutting it.

~ ~ o o O o o ~ ~

So the other day I opened my email and found a note from Gina at Applegate Farms.  Apparently she’d found my blog because of my rather regular mentions of purchases of Applegate Farms meat products [I do love the stuff and depend on it as a major source of protein, especially when I travel and it's an important ingredient in my recipe for hot pocket sandwiches].

Gina told me about a “Rock the Box” contest currently taking place.  You could win a cool OOTS deluxe lunch box simply by sharing your most vivid school food memory.

Funny but I don’t have any vivid, specific school food memories.  What I do remember, however, is the general embarrassment of eating brown whole grain bread.  In those days — mid- and late-70’s — we didn’t know anyone else at school who ate brown bread.  It was truly the era of Rainbo bread.  My siblings and I perfected a hobo-brown-bag move of eating our sandwiches as they were cleverly hidden inside our paper lunch bags.

Luckily my kids attend school with kids who’ve grown up with whole grain bread.  For them it’s perfectly normal.

It’s a good thing The Son doesn’t feel the need to hide his sandwich in a brown paper bag because Gina graciously offered to send us a complimentary OOTS lunch box — in his favorite color, no less: green.  The Daughter actually prefers the brown paper lunch bag not because she uses it to hide her sandwich but because it doesn’t require her to remember to bring anything home with her.  Whatever works, right?

Related Posts for Further Reading

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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Kroger Pharamcy — $29.09

My T3 thyroid medicine.  It was the T4 thyroid meds that I scored big on from my doctor’s office the other day.  This stuff I still had to pay for.  And obviously it’s not cheap.  Not sure why it didn’t qualify for insurance coverage; it is the generic.  Usually I only pay $10.00 though my records are a mess and I can’t remember if this is always this expensive or if something went wrong with the insurance billing.  I should call and look into it.  “Should” is a dirty word though.  It might not happen.

Kroger — $70.68 ($44.96 on gift card; $25.72 on credit card)

• Kroger mega-pack T.P. — $6.39 (saved $1.50)
• Horizon 2% milk — $4.89 (saved $0.30)
• 2 Horizon chocolate milk — $3.49/ea. (saved $0.50/ea.)
• Dole Orange/Peach/Mango juice — $2.99 (saved $1.00)
• Welch’s dried fruit Berry Medley — $4.99
• Santa Barbara Olive Co. green olives — $3.99 (yummy!)
• dozen Nest Fresh eggs — $3.69
• 2 DiGiorno pizzas — $6.59/ea.
• 5 navel oranges — $2.95
• mini carrots — $1.00 (saved $0.99)
• 2.84# bananas — $1.59
• 1.72# honeycrisp apples — $5.14
• 2.33# gala apples — $2.31
• French’s yellow mustard — $1.50 (saved $0.79)
• 2 Amy’s frozen burritos — $2.00/ea. (saved $0.29/ea.)
• Rudi’s organic whole wheat bread — $4.59
• 6 bag credits — ($0.30)

The day’s total:  $99.77

~ ~ o o O o o ~ ~

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Doctor co-pay — $50.00

It was time for The Daughter to go back for her first check-up with the endocrinologist.  Her blood test showed that her thyroid level had improved but was still on the very low end of normal.  Together with that result and the news that The Daughter had felt better last month but had recently started up with the uncontrollable afternoon napping and low energy, the Dr. upped her dosage.  We dropped the prescription off on the way home and she’ll pick it up tomorrow.  In the meantime, it’s half of what I take and some of the samples I got from his office last week are for the correct dosage (I’m supposed to just take two) so she can start on the higher dosage immediately (tomorrow morning).

Kroger — $21.35

While at the store dropping off The Daughter’s new prescription, naturally she wanted to pick up a few odds and ends.  Below you will see an item that I was loathe to buy and extremely reluctant to admit to here in public.  But the point of this blog is full financial disclosure so here it is, uncensored.  You should note that The Daughter and I made a deal –  I would buy this particular “forbidden fruit” for her under two conditions:  1) she will not longer request nor buy for herself pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (her concession, I really had no big issue with the B&J though it is quite expensive, comparatively speaking); and 2) she would not ever admit in public or to any of her friends that I buy this stuff for her.

• 2 boxes of Lucky Charms cereal — $2.99/ea.

I agrued that B&J ice cream is actually healthier for her because at least the ingredients are clean and pronounceable.  She was unconvinced.  She’s totally hooked on these nasty things.  I can’t believe we’ve strayed this far from the path.

• Quaker chewy granola bars (not much better) — $2.73/ea.
• Orbit gum — $1.29 (she was never allowed to chew gum when she was younger; where did I go so wrong?)
• Fruitabu Twirls — $4.69
• Nexcare Camp Rock tattoo band-aids — $3.49

If you’re going to compromise your values, might as well crush every single one of them at the same time, right?

Hospital Gift Shop — $11.49

This evening at about 7pm I received a text from my mom.  My nephew had been skate-boarding, had an accident, and broken his arm.  My sister and her husband had dashed out to take him to the ER.  The next message informed me it had been a compound fracture.  As the night wore on, more of the story came out.  A neighbor had found him wandering in the street holding his arm.  He was in shock.  She found his phone and called his parents.  More news came in too.  It was a multiple compound fracture and will require several surgeries starting this evening.  More tests were required.  A jaw fracture was feared.  And head injuries.  I didn’t hear more about those possibilities so I’m assuming they were ruled out.

Before the extent of the injuries had come out, I starting thinking it would be nice to send him a little get-well gift.  I was thinking something edible because what use does a 12-yo boy have for flowers?

Not sure where to begin, I Googled “send gift to patient in XX hospital” and one of the first results was the hospital’s gift shop which happened to remain open until 9pm.  They didn’t have any info about placing phone orders but I thought I’d give it a try.  The young woman who answered the phone was so incredibly wonderful and helpful and friendly.  She walked me though their selection of goodies and balloons and magazines and helped me pick out some candy and a balloon.

Then she checked on the patient’s status — I wasn’t even sure where he’d been taken though I had assumed it was the hospital just a few blocks away from their house; the hospital where his dad works.  I was wrong.  There are two hospitals in the area and my nephew was in the children’s hospital a block or two away from the hospital I had called.  Since the children’s hospital didn’t have a fully staffed gift shop, the store clerk took my order and offered to drop the gift order off after work.  Wow!

The order only came to $4 and change so I added a second balloon and a bag of salty snacks to go along with the candy.  I got a text shortly after 9 that his gift had arrived and had, at least momentarily, helped lift his mood.

All I can say is thank goodness they have health insurance.  And bless the young woman who went above and beyond this evening.

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Today I left the house, was gone the better part of the day, and still didn’t spend a dime.  Not a penny.  Nothing.

Today was the last of three field-trip days for The Son’s freshman class.  I hadn’t explicitly volunteered to drive this time but apparently it was assumed that I would.  Last night The Son said, “you’re driving, right?”  I said “well, I didn’t think so.  No one asked and I didn’t say I would.”  “Well, they think you are.” “Well, I guess I am then, huh?”  So I did.

I would have preferred to have felt better today but I didn’t.  I don’t know if it’s perimenopause or my wonky (non-existent) thyroid but the PMS (minus the “P” part) is out of control.  I spent last night in the most incredible pain.  Sure I’m a dork — I didn’t occur to me to take anything for the pain until about 5 this morning.  Still, the level of pain last night was simply unacceptable and more than slightly overwhelming.  Anyway, given my druthers, I’d have chosen to feel better on a day when I was expected to help shuttle 16 high school freshman on a geology field trip.

This morning as I was waiting for roll to be taken and permission slips to be accounted for, I was relating my woes.  The poor soul listening to my pathetic tale said, just as any sane person would, why didn’t you take something for the pain.  That’s when it occurred to me that I’m completely out of practice at taking painkillers for body pain.  Sure, when I get a headache — or finally realize I have a headache is actually what happens — I take some Advil and generally feel better.  But the last few years of Fibromyalgia have completely broken me of the habit of taking pain killers for body pain.  Pain killers simply don’t touch the Fibro pain — whether over-the-counter stuff or more powerful prescription drugs.  They just don’t do anything.  So I suffered nearly all night in agony, tossing and turning, and sleeping very fitfully when I slept at all.  At about 5 The Husband asked why I didn’t take some Advil which I did only to finally fall into a deep sleep just when it was time to get up and go to school with the kids.

Given my state of mind and the fact that I was out and about with a car at my disposal, I’m a little proud of myself that today didn’t turn out to be a SWI (shopping while impared) day.  I do have a bit of a habit of making unwise or bizarre purchasing decisions while under the influence of pain.  Of course the catalyst for SWI days seems to be Fibro pain, not PMS pain and I’ve been blessedly free of all but the most mild Fibro pain for months.

Related Posts for Further Reading

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You will not believe what we did today instead of going to church.  Confession time:  The Son and I went to a movie instead.  A movie!  Before noon!  On Sunday!  And a science-fiction film at that!

We saw District 9.  It was excellent.  Truly excellent.  If this is your type of movie at all, I mean at all, you must go see it.  Unless you have a TV the size of a theater screen and surround sound in your home, see this in a theater.  It was so worth the money and the guilt.

My other expense today was a tank of gas for The Silver Bullet.  The Daughter, who struggled her way through the ACT again yesterday and a couple hours of hard-gardening-labor today, is definitely a bit out-of-sorts today.  I know because she left my car with less than a quarter tank of gas.  As much as I might complain about The Daughter, one thing she’s not in the habit of is letting the gas tank get too low.  That was why I was so surprised today to get in the car for my Apple lesson and discover the gas idiot light on.  I hate pumping gas but I hate running out of gas a whole lot more.

Theater — $11.00 (two tickets; The Son paid for his own refreshments)

Conoco — $30.25 (pumped 12.610 gallons @ $2.399/gallon; odometer read 17,575 miles)

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But it wasn’t a typical day.  No it was a there’s-no-milk-in-the-fridge-and-I’m-all-out-of-yogurt-too day.  What’s a poor, hungry, car-less, abandoned-by-her-heretofore-homeschooled-son, suburban middle-aged woman to do without milk or yogurt?  I did the only thing I could do, I improvised.  In other words, I jumped on The Husband’s electric scooter and scooted myself over to Natural Grocers.  And as luck would have it, I missed the phone call from the high school administrator that I’d been waiting for.  Oh well.  I was hungry, it was noon, and did I mention there wasn’t any milk or yogurt?

Ha!  After all that, it just occurred to me that I didn’t technically spend any money today even with the biker-chick ride-on-the-wild-side escapade.  I paid for my groceries with the gift cards I bought earlier this month from the kids’ school.  So there!  Technically it was a no-spend day.

Natural Grocers — $44.06

• gallon of Horizon 2% milk — $5.19
• quart of buttermilk — $3.89 (we had pancakes for dinner!)
• Willow River havarti cheese — $3.33
• Willow River colby jack cheese — $4.17
• 8 Brown Cow cream top vanilla yogurt cups — $0.79/ea.
• 3 packages Applegate Farms roast turkey — $3.99/ea. (still on sale)
• 1 package Applegate Farms smoked turkey — $3.99
• 2 Odwalla strawberry C monsters — $2.49/ea.

As for daily doing, there’s still pathetically little to report there.  I did load and run the dishwasher this morning and ran a load of laundry.  But I didn’t exercise today.  I did work, yet again, on stocking my online store.  No more sales this week but that’s okay.  My store isn’t even officially open and still the sales have been trickling in.  I’d estimate I’ve got about 1/3 of my inventory listed so far.  It feels like a real accomplishment.

The move to my new server account didn’t happen today.  It needs to happen sometime soon so, again, if you visit my blog and get an error message, try again later.

If you’re a YNAB fan, have you seen the latest screencast previews of the upcoming YNAB3?  I swear they sent my heart racing.  I almost can’t stand the sense of anticipation I feel at the thought of being able to get back to daily budgeting.  I really, really miss the feeling that I was really on top of and in control of our monthly budget.  Jesse’s still promising a 2009 release date so in the very worst case scenario, I only have another 3.5 months left before I can go back to YNAB budgeting.

Well, time for this Suburban Wife biker-chick to hit the hay.  Nighty-night.

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~SuburbanWife

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Here’s a note to anyone considering a remodel project or new home construction — pay attention to the lighting fixtures you spec.  I wish I’d thought of that before we embarked on our remodeling projects (kitchen and 2 bathrooms).  It seems like every single lamp and light fixture in our house requires a different size and different type of bulb.

I kid you not, a full third of all of our lightbulbs have been burned out for months.  Seriously.

Since the dawn of time (or at least since the beginning of our relationship), The Husband and I have had a tacit agreement about bulb responsibilities.  I’m responsible for buying the bulbs.  He’s responsible for replacing them.  But tacit or not, it’s not a very good arrangement.  We’ve lived in this house for over 6 years and for that entire time I’ve stored extra bulbs in the same place — on the storage shelves in the basement.  But every single time a bulb burns out and I request that he replace it, The Husband asks me where I keep the bulbs.

The Husband doesn’t like manual labor and changing bulbs is apparently manual labor.  In other words, he doesn’t like changing bulbs.  It becomes a contest of wills — will that final of three bathroom bulbs burn out first or will I break down first and mention that I can’t see to count my wrinkles and new gray hairs.

Well, just as The Husband sucks at replacing bulbs, I suck at keeping them stocked.  Buying the right light bulbs is an errand and I suck at errands.  Well, part of that might be that for 9.5 months out of the year I don’t have daily use of a car but that’s just an excuse.  The truth is light bulbs are expensive and I hate buying them.  I hate keeping track of all of the maximum wattages and the Par30Ls and the this and thats needed to keep our house adequately lit.

So over time the lines of bulb responsibility have blurred a bit.  Every once in a while, I’ll go around the house in a flurry of bulb-replacement activity.  And every once in a while, he’ll come home with a package of generic bulbs.  He only buys one type, however.  The old-fashioned soft white bulbs.  And very few of the lamps and light fixtures in our house use that type of bulb.

[Okay, before you write to me about the new energy-saving halogen bulbs, yes, I have heard of them.  Yes, I use them where I can but that's only in one or two lamps and they're the lamps we never use.  Why?  'Cause almost every single light fixture in our house is on a dimmer: kitchen, bathrooms, and basement track lighting -- all on dimmers.  Another problem is that they have extra wide stems that won't fit into my kitchen lighting cans.  Yes, I've seen the new dimmable halogens and I use them wherever I can, but again, that's the rare case.]

Today, however, I went light bulb shopping.  And it sucked.

The Daughter needed a blood test in preparation with her appointment next week with the endocrinologist.  I needed my new thyroid prescription.  So after school, after she brought her brother home, she and I went out.  First to the doctor’s office where he have her a lab order and his aide gave me free drugs.  About 12 week’s worth of Levoxyl!  Wow, what a score!  She did the needle thing and we were done.

Our next stop was Lowe’s.  Now The Daughter never would have agreed to adding a lightbulb-shopping trip to our afternoon if it weren’t in her best interest.  A couple of days ago her “touch lamp” went dark and it has remained dark because our lightbulb stash didn’t include any 3-way bulbs.

My shopping list was bigger than a single 3-way bulb however.  I needed those white globe bulbs for the kids’ bathroom — that fixture was down to a single functioning bulb.  And some of those long-stemmed flood bulbs for the kitchen — less than half the lights in the kitchen currently work.  Plus those little chandelier bulbs for the wall sconces at the top of the basement stairs and the basement hallway — those have been burned out for over 6 months.

I should have known better than to go to Lowe’s.  It was directly on our route home though.  Still, it was a stupid mistake and one that resulted in no bulbs for the kitchen.  I usually get my bulbs at The Home Depot.  I know they carry the right bulbs and exactly where they are.  Lowe’s didn’t have the right size in the correct wattage.  I looked everywhere.  I was tempted to abandon my cart and go to The Home Depot but The Daughter would have mutinied.  She had homework, she was feeling bad, and she was tired.  Me too.  I whimped out, spent a fortune on bulbs, didn’t get everything I needed, got some I thought I needed but didn’t, and went home.  Ugh.  It’ll probably be another 3 months before I get full lighting in my kitchen again.  I suppose it’s just as well, maybe it’ll be so dark in there no one will notice how messy it is.

Lowe’s — $60.04

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Today I watched President Obama address the Congress about health care — after spending $925.00 on health care for my family.

Shall I start at the beginning?

I’d forgotten that I had a dentist appointment today.  Luckily the office gave me a reminder phone call which I didn’t retrieve from our voice mail until about 11pm last night but that’s my fault.  So this morning, because it was Wednesday and I don’t have a car on Wednesday, The Husband came by and took me to the dentist’s office.  I was there because I need a crown.  My second crown this year.  On top of that, I had my first two root canals done this summer, one just two weeks after the other.  Can we say b-u-m-m-e-r?

Turns out root canals aren’t the awful procedures everyone makes them out to be.  No, what’s awful is the pain one endures in the days (or weeks, depending on one’s determination to avoid the dentist) leading up to the determination that one needs a root canal.

That’s the physical pain one suffers.  There’s another type of pain associated with a root canal — the financial pain.  One crown and two root canals put me well over my $1,000 maximum annual dental insurance payout.  So a portion of the second root canal had to be paid out-of-pocket.  And this entire second crown is out-of-pocket.  Sure, I could have tried to put it off until next calendar year but here’s the thing (actually two things):

1. The tooth in question had a fracture and a few weeks ago I started experiencing a good deal of discomfort (read: pain) when I ate on that side of my mouth.  Since that’s where I just had two root canals, I will admit to being very jumpy about any pain there.  Another root canal?  An incomplete root canal?  Will it hurt the way the other ones did?  Will I survive a third round of pain on that scale in less than three months?  Do I want to?  Are all of my teeth going to fall prey to some mysterious spreading infectious disease, like white dominoes tumbling one after another inside my mouth?
2. As of September 30 of this year, our current insurance policy through my former employer is kaput.  Done.  Gone.  We’re desperately trying to secure health insurance for me and the kids but it’s looking pretty ugly at this point.  Even if we do manage to find someone who will insure me and The Son, after the insurance premiums will we also be able to afford dental insurance?  Or will we have to self-insure our dental health meaning just pay for everything out-of-pocket, even preventative care?

So come 10 am this morning, I was sitting in the dentist’s chair discussing my fears and concerns.  The dentist convinced me that the source of the pain was most likely that fracture and the best course of action was to proceed with the crown prep.  This made a great deal of sense to me — more so that my tooth’s root somehow spontaneously regenerating like some supernatural creature coming back to haunt me with unbearable pain.  He worked his magic and seated a temporary crown.  The office will follow up with me on Friday at which time it is hoped that the pain will have been alleviated and I’ll give them the go-ahead to send the moulds to the lab who will prepare the permanent crown.

[See I'm a bit panic-y about the prospect of having a permanent crown seated only to discover that somehow the root canal didn't take properly and we have to drill through the new crown.  My first crown of the year is over the first root canal; that's the tooth that seems to hurt.  But it's right next to the second root canal/temporary crown tooth and it's very, very difficult to isolate the pain and identify exactly where it's coming from.]

So, that was my morning.  An hour and a half in the dentist’s chair and a $900 bill for the privilege.  No, I’m exaggerating just a tad.  The bill was actually $967 but that covers the entire procedure — what they did today plus the making of the permanent crown, plus seating the crown, and any necessary follow-up work.  But the bill was presented in whole today and by paying in full I received a 7% discount which brought the total, put on a credit card that will net me another 1.5% cash back reward, to exactly $900.

~ ~ o o O o o ~ ~

Ah, but I was not yet done spending money on health care.  The Daughter needed to see her doctor.  She called me this weekend very upset.  Her period had just started.  Again.  For the third time in less than a month.  Each period lasted 5 to 6 days.  Then it would start again in less than a week.  She was in tears.  I could completely emphathize.

In June she was diagnosed as being hypothyroid and put on a thyroid replacement.  A low dose.  There was no way she was going to escape thyroid problems.  Every single person on both sides of our family has thyroid problems.  It was just a matter of time.  And the time was this summer.

One of the more common symptoms of hypothyroidism is heavier than normal periods and worse than normal PMS.  I know this from experience.  The Daughter has always suffered from PMS and her periods had increased to once every three weeks.  Those symptoms, and the fact that she simply could not stay awake all day long, were the reasons I took her to see my endocrinologist.

But at almost the same time, she asked me to set up an appointment with a physician to discuss birth control pills.  [Yes, I was slightly taken aback, at first.  Then I realized how very lucky I was that she had asked.  After all, legally, she doesn't need my permission. ]  Her reasons for wanting to go on birth control was to help alleviate the PMS, to regulate her periods, and to help with her acne (which honestly is barely there but I remember what those years are like).  Anyway, I reasoned that at 17, she’s not more than a few years away from needed birth control for a completely different reason (no, I’m not being naive, she really is not sexually active yet and doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get there at this point).  And I’d much rather that she have found an effective pill and that her body had time to adjust to it long before birth control is necessary.  Or as the boy scouts say, be prepared.  This time next year she’ll be away at college; this will be one less thing she’ll have to worry about on her own.

But the birth control pills could also be the culprit in the period-every-other-week thing.  So yesterday I was able to make her an appointment to see a P.A. in the doctor’s office.  She came home from school, picked me up, we drove to the doctor’s office, I paid the co-pay fee, she talked to the P.A. (who apparently ordered a prescription for a different med), and we drove home.  This was the first time she didn’t ask me to come into the exam room with her.  I was proud of her.  It was good, though I still can’t quite believe that I’m the mother of an 17-year-old-high-school-senior-preparing-to-go-off-to-college-birth-control-taking-independent-minded daughter.  Wasn’t it just yesterday that she was learning to walk and talking about how doggies say “woof, woof”?

So there went another $25.00 for the office visit co-pay.

After getting The Daughter back home, I headed into town to pick up The Son.  I’d forgotten, however, that I’d told him to walk to the coffee shop with his classmates after school.  I wasn’t sure how long the doctor would take and I was afraid I’d be late picking him up.  Having to wait around for a parent is probably not any teen’s idea of fun but for my Aspie son it would have been akin to asking him to put his hand in a wood chipper.  Painful and unproductive for everyone concerned.

The coffee shop was the perfect solution.  But as I said, I forgot so I got to the school just a few minutes after class had been let out.  The only thing worse than being late would have been making him cancel his plans to join his friends at the coffee shop.  So I thought I’d kill some time in the local bookstore.

It’s a marvalous book store and it’s pretty rare for me to leave a book store without a purchase of some kind but today I was uninspired.  And, frankly, bored.  So I left the bookstore and, on a whim, entered the music store next door.  I usually hate music stores.  They’re loud and the music is usually some type of heavy-metal head-banging stuff that gives me an instant headache.  And all of the music is incredibly expensive.  But this store was different.  They were playing a beautiful piece of classical music at just the right volume — I could hear it but no one had to talk over it.  And the first row of CD’s I came to were all reasonably priced used discs.

So I splurged.  I haven’t bought a CD in so long that I have no recollection of when it was or what I would have bought.  It’s been a really, really long time.  I had no intention of buying anything.  And I almost didn’t find anything I wanted to buy.  But then, boom, one right after the other I found two out-of-print discs that I couldn’t talk myself out of buying.

The first was David Bowie Changesbowie.  As I said, it’s out of print and a phenomenal album.  I knew that not only would I enjoy it, but so would The Son.  It was pricey:  $12.99.

The second, and my age is probably really showing now, was Kate Bush, The Whole Story.  Like the David Bowie album, it’s out of print.  Not only that, but my favorite song from the album, Running up that Hill, isn’t available from any of the legitimate download sources I know about.  I’ve checked.  Unlike Changesbowie, the Kate Bush album isn’t chock full of songs I love.  But I do like a few well enough that I felt the album worth the $6.99 they were charging.  Besides, I can sell it back.

The funny thing was, today being 09-09-09 and the day chosen to premier the new Rockband game, The Beatles, this particular music store had all of their single remastered Beatles CDs on sale for $9.99 (new, not used).  There were people loading up with every single Beatles CD on offer.  But passing up that offer was easy.  Not that I’m not a Beatles fan.  I’m nearly a devotee.  I wasn’t tempted by the sale because I already have nearly every Beatles CD; well, the ones worth owning anyway — which is most of them but those that I don’t already own were not worth the $9.99 price tag, no matter how deep the sale.  The only album I would have bought was the White Album but as it’s not a single, it wasn’t on sale.

Back to selling CDs, I’m pretty excited to have found this source.  I have a stack of CDs that need to go.  I just haven’t known what to do with them.  So, Kate Bush will most likely be ripped, enjoyed in the car a few times, and then sold back to the store.  Sure, I’ll get a fraction of my purchase price back but it’s a price I was willing to pay for a rare indulgence.

So, quick recap:

• Dentist — $900.00
• Doctor — $25.00
• Music Store — $22.60

Good night.  Be well.

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