I have not done a lot today. Just went to the 10.30 at Emmanuel, then back home where I was crocheting and watching episodes all the afternoon of 'Undercover Boss' , a reality programme I quite like where the CEOs of large companies go undercover to find out what is wrong with their companies. Then Sunday evenings it is competitions on the Food Network. The evil Fox News, as Fr Clark calls it, doesn't get much of a look in on Sundays.
Next Sunday is the First in Advent. And now Halloween is over Christmas has taken over in the stores, and the television ads. It will be time to take down my autumn decorations and get out the Christmas ones. I might leave it until the week before Christmas though, I really like the autumn colours and flowers and I am not in a hurry to put them away.
I e-mailed Michael today at the Monastery in Beaumont and asked if I could come for Christmas. He said of course I could, I don't need to ask, they'll look forward to seeing me. I think I might leave on Friday the 20th, I probably won't be able to do the journey in a day because it gets dark too early. And I'll rent a car; the engine on mine is threatening to come off its mounting, and I certainly don't need that deep in the heart of Texas.
I have just had another look at the driving directions, and although the mileages are more or less exactly the same - both just under 500 miles - it is 9 hours along the highways, and 7 hours 40 minutes along the interstate. Drawback with the interstate is that I go through downtown Dallas with its six lanes of busy traffic and loops all over the place. I think I'll take the highways.
Harking back to yesterday, Saturday, I went to the monthly AARP meeting. The speaker was someone talking about Medicare, and I don't usually stay for anything like that which doesn't concern me, but Phyllis came to sit beside me while she had her lunch so I didn't want to get up. So I stayed and listened and learned something, it didn't do me any good but it opened my eyes.
To try and put it in a nutshell; Medicare provides health coverage to seniors over 65. However - and therein lies the scandal - federal law prohibits Medicare negotiating cheaper prices with the pharmaceutical companies, so seniors (and bear in mind nothing is free in this country) have to pay more than they can afford, and a lot more than they should, for their prescription medicines. Are you keeping up with me? AARP are proposing to put an end to this racketeering.
Americans, or more precisely Republicans, sneer at our European socialism but give me it any day over their (dare I say it) corrupt capitalism. And I know we have our corrupt politicians too, they just don't get to operate on the scale they do here.
And as the NSA reads all our e-mails I wonder how long it will be before Homeland Security are running me out of the country.
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