What are you doing today?

Cmaier said:
I grew up there.
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I got a start on that there too. Living on a tiny Hudson Valley farm. I was a little kid in heaven on earth for sure! It was in the 1940s and we didn't even have running water in the house for the first while that we lived there. My mom surely had somewhat different views of that time, but even she liked it a lot better once my dad ran a spring line down to a reservoir and put a pump in at the kitchen sink.

We moved to Maryland for awhile after that for his work, and so living along an inlet off the Chesapeake Bay was also wonderful, but the little farm near the Hudson remains strong in my memory as a place of great fun and freedom to explore. Only rules up there once my chores were done were to stay out of the creek in the spring flooding times and don't wander past the next farm, which was five miles away. "Those were the days..."
 
lizkat said:
I got a start on that there too. Living on a tiny Hudson Valley farm. I was a little kid in heaven on earth for sure! It was in the 1940s and we didn't even have running water in the house for the first while that we lived there. My mom surely had somewhat different views of that time, but even she liked it a lot better once my dad ran a spring line down to a reservoir and put a pump in at the kitchen sink.

We moved to Maryland for awhile after that for his work, and so living along an inlet off the Chesapeake Bay was also wonderful, but the little farm near the Hudson remains strong in my memory as a place of great fun and freedom to explore. Only rules up there once my chores were done were to stay out of the creek in the spring flooding times and don't wander past the next farm, which was five miles away. "Those were the days..."
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Are you saying you lived here in the 1940s?
 
Edd said:
Ever eat at a place called Shadows on the Hudson in Poughkeepsie? Considering doing Thanksgiving dinner there.
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Nope. I didn’t spend much time up there. I lived further down the thruway (Monroe), then went to college north of there (Troy).
 
januarydrive7 said:
Fascinating
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Indeed.

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Edd said:
Are you saying you lived here in the 1940s?
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Yep, up in Columbia County, which back then was all farms. It's still relatively sparsely populated, something like 63k people live in that county now, about 130 per square mile. Back then there were far fewer, I mean there were maybe 100 people in the whole nearest hamlet, Claverack --which even now only has a population of around a thousand people.
 
lizkat said:
Yep, up in Columbia County, which back then was all farms. It's still relatively sparsely populated, something like 63k people live in that county now, about 130 per square mile. Back then there were far fewer, I mean there were maybe 100 people in the whole nearest hamlet, Claverack --which even now only has a population of around a thousand people.
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I never even heard of Columbia county despite living 16 years in Orange County and 8 years in Rensselaer County. Good stumping.
 
I’ll be calling my bank. Yesterday I got an automated call purporting to be from its CC fraud prevention department about “suspicious activity”. When I returned that call I got another automated system that asked me to verify various bits of information. I’m not comfortable with that. I want to talk to a human at a number that I know is really my bank.

After that, I’m having two of my grandkids over for a day-long Gotham marathon.
 
The whole gang is now in Florida. Tomorrow I’ll finally see my nephews, who are getting a few hours off work for Thanksgiving. It’s bloody cold here though! Definitely warmer at home. Today we’ve scoped out two restaurants, one for lunch and one for dinner. When we said goodnight to the kids last night, my daughter still wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be working today or not, but she planned on working at least until lunch.
 
Thomas Veil said:
I’ll be calling my bank. Yesterday I got an automated call purporting to be from its CC fraud prevention department about “suspicious activity”. When I returned that call I got another automated system that asked me to verify various bits of information. I’m not comfortable with that. I want to talk to a human at a number that I know is really my bank.

After that, I’m having two of my grandkids over for a day-long Gotham marathon.
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Good call, your safest option is always to call the number on the back of the card. I've had to consult with a few banks and they always make us go through their training, they all say you should always call the bank directly (not by a number given in a recording) to confirm anything questionable like this.
 
Well it could be correct. Yesterday I purchased a bunch of Christmas presents from a variety of places within the span of an hour. My purchases are usually one-off, so that could’ve triggered something.

But the 800 number they gave me is not the one on the card, and when I Googled the number online I got conflicting info on whether it was a scam. So yeah, best to call them. Thanks for the confirmation.
 
Update: the call was legit. One vendor tried to put the transaction through twice and the first one was declined. Probably a glitch. That resulted in my card being locked and the transactions I made after that being declined as well. But the gentleman I spoke to reset my card so it’s all good.
 
Cmaier said:
I never even heard of Columbia county despite living 16 years in Orange County and 8 years in Rensselaer County. Good stumping.
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Yah, for someone who ended up in NYC for 35 years, with forays to SF and Chicago, I have ended up in retirement almost at midpoint between the two hangouts of my infancy and early childhood. Both of those were in still pretty rural counties and about 100 miles apart. "Small world with detours." I like the weather in the Catskills better on balance, I think. Not so hot in summer as over in the Hudson valley can get, and as the old joke goes about mountain weather anywhere, "if you don't like it, wait 20 minutes."

[ Orange County was part of my beat when I was commuting to the Catskills (at first on weekends and later less often when telecommuting became more feasible), although I took the Palisades and Rte 6 to 17 instead of the Thruway... it's possible I had a reserved table in the Chester McD's 🥳 since my habit was to skip supper in NYC on Friday, take a nap for awhile, then fish my car out of the garage quite late in the evening to dodge all that earlier outbound traffic on the GW bridge. So it was either grab something to eat in Chester or starve until I got pretty far into the Catskills along 17, and that seemed to my stomach like a long haul from lunchtime for sure.]

Today what's up for me is taking advantage of a gorgeously sunny day to finish up some yardwork before next early snowfall. It's cold and crisp and fine out there, and reminds me that despite how short the days are now, when a sunny one comes along, it's a thing to be treasured!
 
Eric said:
Got mail from a funeral home offering their services, shit gets real when you turn 55.
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My Dad is 93 and it feels like he is in waiting to die mode. At some point it has to weigh on you a bit. He seems to be reconciled with the situation, and I and my 2 brothers feel helpless to do anything about it, because we are helpless. Have offered to have him stay at a senior facility nearby, but he‘d rather stay in Florida. :unsure:
 
Huntn said:
My Dad is 93 and it feels like he is in waiting to die mode. At some point it has to weigh on you a bit. He seems to be reconciled with the situation, and I and my 2 brothers feel helpless to do anything about it, because we are helpless. Have offered to have him stay at a senior facility nearby, but he‘d rather stay in Florida. :unsure:
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I had the same situation with my mother, in the end she conceded to the assisted living facility but it wasn't without a struggle. Personally, I am really open to the idea when I get older, they basically take care of all your needs and it takes all the burden off of family, which can put a ton of stress on everyone involved.

However, I do get the other side of that, it's your home and independence (whether you really are capable or not) that's being taken from you and if there's family willing to take care of the aging parent it's an ideal situation.
 
Eric said:
Good call, your safest option is always to call the number on the back of the card. I've had to consult with a few banks and they always make us go through their training, they all say you should always call the bank directly (not by a number given in a recording) to confirm anything questionable like this.
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I sometimes question how much I really trust my bank, given that the big banks have all been involved in some sort of scam. When I looked around for a credit union, the ones I found were also garbage, so that didn't help. Most of the local banks were bought out or went under somewhere around 2008-2009.
 
Huntn said:
My Dad is 93 and it feels like he is in waiting to die mode. At some point it has to weigh on you a bit. He seems to be reconciled with the situation, and I and my 2 brothers feel helpless to do anything about it, because we are helpless. Have offered to have him stay at a senior facility nearby, but he‘d rather stay in Florida. :unsure:
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Eric said:
I had the same situation with my mother, in the end she conceded to the assisted living facility but it wasn't without a struggle. Personally, I am really open to the idea when I get older, they basically take care of all your needs and it takes all the burden off of family, which can put a ton of stress on everyone involved.

However, I do get the other side of that, it's your home and independence (whether you really are capable or not) that's being taken from you and if there's family willing to take care of the aging parent it's an ideal situation.
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There must be something between these two extremes: There should be provision for something which is neither a senior facility (personally, I'd rather a pillow over my face, a bullet in the head, or the Roman exit, rather than spend my remaining days in a senior facility) nor weighs impossibly heavily on family in terms of the ineviatble demands, physical, mental, psychological and emotional, that total care can require.

The ideal is some sort of state support or assistance which allows the senior to remain relatively independent and in their own home for as long as possible, while also allowing for family to give what support they feel able to give.

We were fortunate when caring for my mother on a number of grounds; firstly, that we had sufficient means to pay for the sort of private care that the wonderful Filipina carer was able to provide, and secondly, that we were also able to call upon state support in the form of stuff such as respite care, GP care, and three visits daily from state funded bodies to help wash and care for my mother.
 
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