I'm still here

I'm having a difficult time, thinking of anything to say here, these days, but here goes. I guess I can say that I'm doing OK, mostly slogging through life as it comes. I've lost some of the momentum I had, reading "How to Survive the Loss of a Love" that my sister Otamay gave me in January. But I'm taking some of the advice I've read in there to heart, especially the part about not making any big changes right now, and just trying to see how my regular routine adjusts itself, to not having Kristan around any more. Just typing that on the keyboard, the tears well up in my eyes, and I can't read the screen any more. So clearly I'm not "fine," but I don't expect that. The housekeeper / dogsitter is helping me get rid of hundreds of pounds of old magazines, newspapers, and store catalogs, a little at a time. I'm also nibbling away at the dozens of subscriptions she had, to email newsletters, so that her inbox will be less full, and I can more easily watch for attempted business and personal communications. Some neighbors have stepped up, and are calling occasionally, to keep me busy with little social events, like going out for meals and walks, and watching movies on our big screen TV in the basement. I'm still dealing with lots of Kristan's medical bills, and expecting that to continue for quite awhile. I'm making the equivalent of a monthly mortgage payment until the end of this year, just to cover her stay at the nursing facility in late 2012, after she broke her neck, and through a miscommunication, we incurred over $10,000 of uninsured financial responsibility, by letting her stay longer than she really needed to, because we were mistakenly told it was covered, and she was getting some helpful therapy. Lately, most of the medical service billers aren't billing insurance right, or at all, so they're demanding that I pay the entire balance, which is very unsettling. I'm having to contact them all - during normal business hours, of course - to find out each of their stories, and to get the insurance information to them. Lorene, the person that was helping us to process the bills, isn't coming any more, because her new caregiver assignment leaves her no free time, so I'm left to my own devices. I'm not looking forward to tax time, which is fast approaching, later in March, although they assure me that it shouldn't be any more complicated than it was before. Except, before I had Kristan and her helpers around, to help collect up all the tax information for the year. I take advantage of the occasional free moment, to try to fly, but mostly crash, my little quadcopter (thank you Gene!) around the bedroom, and sometimes in the larger and taller great room, until the battery runs down, which takes a minute or two. It is really great fun, and very challenging. It likes to zoom unbelievably fast up to the ceiling, and then the vacuum above the propellers makes it stick up there, until I shut off the throttle, whereupon it falls insanely quickly to the floor, before I can react. I'm still too timid, and the weather's too cold and snowy, to take it outside yet, but if it survives the winter, I'm sure I'll take it to a big grassy park, and try it out there, on some warm sunny day. Mandy doesn't like it at all, since it sounds like a giant housefly, and she already hated those things.