The Friday Letter 6/15/07

The big event of our lives this week is our new air filter.

Sure, just a few years ago we installed a state-of-the-art forced air heating, filtration and cooling system. Nevertheless, dust will accumulate far more rapidly than we like.

So we'll see. Laura says she wakens feeling less congested. Hmm.

We also bought yet another house-jack. When the pianos came in, the floor gave us a signal. Things would rattle when we walked. There are already four jacks under there. Last night we engineered the installation of #5. It worked perfectly, stabilizing me and the piano.

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Wow, I thought. My effort at eating less must be working ! These jeans are actually comfortable around my waist ! Then I looked, to discover I'd forgotten to zip the fly and buckle the belt.

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Is there something fishy about this? I got a letter from Medicare in the same day's mail as a postcard from Dunn and Bradstreet.

Medicare says they'll be glad to provide me with prescription coverage, so long as I prove to them I ALREADY have private sector prescription insurance coverage. Oh, and also, so long as I own nothing of value.

Now, Dunn and Bradstreet has been concerned about my credit rating for quite some time -- 20 years, in fact.

"DID YOU KNOW" D&B says, "your credit file may be used to determine the interest you pay on loans, the premiums you pay for workman's comp, the payment terms vendors extend to you."

(Now, drumroll while they get to the point.) For a small fee, D&B will generously ''teach you how you can better leverage your file to improve profitability."

So I'm thinking of hooking up my good friends at D&B and at Medicare. I'd like D&B to help me leverage Medicare so I could go back on Flomax, the $100 prostate shrinking medicine. Am I on the right track?

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So this woman calls from "unavailable" and asks to speak to the "person in charge of purchasing office supplies."

I said, "No one here has that responsibility." How do we get our office supplies?

"I don't know. They just show up. One day there aren't any ballpoint pens. The next day, ballpoints are everywhere."

Says she, "That's rich," and hangs up.

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Word of the week: Mate.

Webster's New World Dictionary says:

"1. A companion, comrade or fellow worker;

2. One of a pair, especiallly of a matched pair;

3. a husband or wife, spouse."

Or, from
http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/MATE

Verb: mate meyt
Engage in sexual intercourse "Birds mate in the Spring"- copulate, pair, couple
Bring two objects, ideas, or people together; match, couple, pair, twin
Place an opponent's king under an attack from which it cannot escape and thus ending the game; checkmateNoun: mate meyt
The officer below the master on a commercial ship; first mate
A fellow member of a team; teammate
The partner of an animal (especially a sexual partner)
A person's partner in marriage; spouse, partner, married person, better half, other half [Brit]
An exact duplicate - match
One of a pair; "he lost the mate to his shoe" ; fellow
South American holly; leaves used in making a drink like tea; - Paraguay tea, Ilex paraguariensis
[Brit] Informal term for a friend of the same gender
A chess move constituting an inescapable and indefensible attack on the opponent's king ; - checkmateNoun: maté maatey
South American tea-like drink made from leaves of a South American holly called mate
Type of: animal, animate being, associate, beast, beat, beat out, beverage, bring together, brute, chess move, conjoin, creature, crush, domestic partner, drink, drinkable, duplicate, duplication, fauna, friend, holly, join, officer, potable, relation, relative, shell, ship's officer, significant other, singleton, spousal equivalent, spouse equivalent, trounce, vanquish
Part of: brace, couple, couplet, distich, duad, duet, duo, dyad, man and wife, marriage, married couple, pair, span, twain, twosome, yoke.
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Word of the week for next week: Fetus